Reinstall XP on a new disk drive

[Chuck Duchon]

I'd like to add a second drive to my PC and do a clean install of Windows XP
on that drive making it the new primary drive.

Then I'd like to selectively copy data from the old drive to the new one.

Will XP let me do a clean install this way or will it somehow "carry over"
settings from the original install?

Will I need to reactivate Win XP?

Any caveats or pitfalls?

 

[Steve C. Ray]

Install the new drive as the master and the old drive as slave. Then boot
from your XP CD (you may have to go into BIOS to set the CD drive as the
first boot device). You can then do a clean install. If you are using a XP
Upgrade, you will need a qualifying Windows product, such as 95, 98 or ME.
After the new installation you can copy what you want from the old disk,
then I would reformat it.
If you have to reactivate, it is a easy phone call.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I'd like to add a second drive to my PC and do a clean install of Windows XP
on that drive making it the new primary drive.

Then I'd like to selectively copy data from the old drive to the new one.

Will XP let me do a clean install this way or will it somehow "carry over"
settings from the original install?

If you set the new drive as the bootable one and install to it after
booting the XP CD, then you will have a totally new fresh system. To
move settings over you would first need to back them up for transfer -
read Gary Woodruff's article on Files and settings Transfer at
http://aumha.org/win5/a/fast.htm

Will I need to reactivate Win XP?

Yes - but it will go through on the net just like the first time and you
will have 30 days to do it. Unless yours is a machine that came with XP
installed and 'BIOS locked', in which case you use whatever restore
method the makers provided to do the fresh install