New XP install on New Drive, System files still on Old Drive - Hel

[Guest]

I bought a new drive and some other hardware upgrades, along with Windows XP
Home Edition to revitalize my computer, rather than purchasing a new one.
Everything installed fine, but not the way I wanted. I installed XP to the
new D: drive, intending to format the old C: drive (which was Windows ME),
and then use it strictly for backup. But now my XP operating system is on
the new drive and my system files are on the old C: drive, so I can't format
it. I have everything set up great on my new XP drive, and I don't want to
lose any changes if at all possible. Is there any way that I can just copy
the system files from my C: drive to my D: drive, and then wipe my old drive
clean?

 

[Guest]

You cannot simply copy applications across from one Hard drive to another:
they will not work as the registry has stored information according to the
orginal installation process.

You can use 3rd party products to Move applications, with some degree of
success. This is largely application specific, some are easier to move than
others.

I would suggest that you reconfigure your system so that the new drive is
located on the Primary IDE controller as HDD 0 [it will become the C Drive]
and the old drive on the Secondary IDE COntroller as HDD 0 [it will become
the D Drive] , both with jumper settings as Master. Place your Optical
drive on the controller as Slave devices.

Then reinstall XP on top of the existing XP installation, by booting up from
the XP installation CD; this will reconfigure the system and allow it to be
used as the C Drive. Make sure it is installed as an 'upgrade' but locates
its files on the C Drive and not the D Drive.

Then you can reinstall all the applications on the new C Drive.

When finished copy all you documents etc across to the C Drive from the D
Drive if you do not already have a separate backup of ALL of them.

Once that is done reformat the D Drive and copy across any information from
C Drive.

If you don't have all the application CDs to be able to reinstall, then
leave the existing version on the D Drive. Deete any redundant files and
folders [leaving only those for which reinstallation isn't an option, due to
lost or missing CDs].