Hi please be gentle with me on my 1st post
I've just brought a Seagate 250gb internal hard drive as at the moment i'm using a 40gb drive should i use the 250gb as the Master and the 40gb as the slave or does it not matter,
Also i want to format my 40gb drive and start a fresh again does it matter what drive i put my operating system on,
I'm using XP Pro with sp2.
I'm a bit worried about installing my hard drive, i'm thinking about just starting with my new drive and putting XP on this then connecting my old drive then formatting that, Am i going in the right direction

Is it an IDE drive or a SATA drive?

If SATA you will need your motherboard drivers for it.

If it is IDE then the jumpers require your attention. Your current drive will be set to Master. If you want to leave (or reinstall) XP on your current drive then leave it as is and add the new drive as a slave.

I would leave (or reinstall) XP on your old drive and just use the new one as a slave.

Leaving XP on the original drive is certainly the most straightforward option. You don't lose any data, programs, settings, etc. However, if your PC could do with a bit of a clean-up and re-install of Windows anyway, then installing it on the new drive would be preferable as it will be faster and more reliable than your old drive. If you install XP on a SATA drive, pay attention to what Jephree said about motherboard drivers - you'll need these on a floppy disk at the start of the XP installation process ...... so download them BEFORE you wipe your PC !

Originally Posted by DJNafey

Leaving XP on the original drive is certainly the most straightforward option. You don't lose any data, programs, settings, etc. However, if your PC could do with a bit of a clean-up and re-install of Windows anyway, then installing it on the new drive would be preferable as it will be faster and more reliable than your old drive. If you install XP on a SATA drive, pay attention to what Jephree said about motherboard drivers - you'll need these on a floppy disk at the start of the XP installation process ...... so download them BEFORE you wipe your PC !

Yeah i have the same opinion with DJNafey, it is just an option to keep your data securely.

My new drive is an IDE drive,
I don't mind loosing any files or data so I think i'll Put XP on my new drive,
Now whats this about my Jumpers!

The Hard Drives jumpers can be found on the rear of the drive usually and allow you to select whether the drive should be used by the system as a Primary or Slave device. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumper_%28computing%29 for more info on Jumpers.

Hi,

As for the jumpers and their, configuration. By the sound of things i'm picturing a standard 2 channel IDE motherboard.

If you open the PC and gaze at the motherboard (thats that big circuit boardy thing that everything seems to connect to) you'll find two IDE sockets. Probably with grey ribbon cables attached. One will probably go to your CD/DVD drive, and the other to your current 40gb Hard Drive. One is a Primary, the other is a secondary channel.

Now. Why do we need jumpers? - and why am i looking at this stupid board thing?

Well. Each IDE socket (or IDE channel) can control TWO IDE devices. Like two CD Drives, or TWO hard drives. So. If you've got two IDE sockets, then you can have four devices. On each socket you have a Master Device, and a Slave device. But the IDE socket has to know which drive is Master and which is the Slave.

It distinguishes the two by those lovely looking jumper thingy's on the back of the drive. You have to set one of your hard drives to Master, and the other, to Slave. It should show you how to arrange the jumpers on the sticker on the drive.

You'll probably also see a thing called Cable Select, (or CSEL) listed as a jumper configuation on the hard drive. If you were wondering what this was, it is the lazy mans way out. Set both drives to CSEL and the IDE socket lets the cable decide which one is Master and Slave.

Regardless of which one you set as master and slave. They will both happily boot windows once it is installed on the drive. You must remember though, that in your BIOS, they are not known as master and slave, they are referred to as HDD-0 and HDD-1 (HDD-0 being master, and HDD-1 being slave) If you were to plug the hard drives into the SECONDARY IDE socket (it will have IDE2 written on the motherboard next to it) they will be reffered to as HDD-2 & HDD-3 in the BIOS.

The only thing i'd be worried about when installing the drive is frying it with static. (If you do not know the dangers of static plase say so!)

Good luck, anyway!

Steve.

(Any more questions, just ask)