I save all the big files to that hard drive and I compress it so I can get as much as I can on it. I've never not had an OS on I had xp on one with no patches or updates and xp pro with sp2 and the critical updates.

A Vista beta was released last summer for the public to apply for and my reply was granted.

RC1 (release candidate) was released about two weeks ago. The final release is scheduled for January.

In my opinion having two XP's could cause confusion across the drives.

A slave drive is perfect for a backup as well as additional file storage but I would never have an Operating System on it.

You are adding unnecessary complexity which leads to possible problems.

That is just my humble opinion as they say.

well then my question to you is should I copy my documents folder from the d drive to the d drive and then compress it and leave it at that? or could this damage the integrity of the file?

Sorry I am still not too clear on the question.

I am assuming that your 20GB drive is C:? Then the 200GB is D:?

With out an Operating System (XP) on D: you will create your own folders. My Documents per se will not be there as that is an XP folder but you can always make your own folder named whatever you like and move the content of My Documents to it.

If you want to move folders and files from My Documents C: to file New Name D: yes that is fine.

I would not move anything into the 200GB XP My Documents or any other D: XP file. My goal would be to remove XP from the 200GB drive.

Hope I am making sense.


Re-reading your question I am understanding it differently and I would say yes.

well then my question to you is should I copy my documents folder from the d drive to the d drive and then compress it and leave it at that? or could this damage the integrity of the file?

You will move D: My Documents to say D: New Folder. This should be fine.

if I save the big files say the movies and games and songs onto the 200 without an OS can I still number 1 open them and play them and number 2 write to drive and be able to open and play and view them after?

example I saved GTA SA on my 200 because it was 3.9GB and if it was on my little 20 it would fill it up fast and I would play it from my 200 is this still possible?

Movies > Songs > Data > Backup > YES. That is what slave drives are for.

If the Games (or any programs) were installed on a particular Operating System then they depend on that Operating System (they are in the registry).

Data can always be moved across partitions and drives. Programs cannot. You would need to reinstall them.

You can always reinstall games to D: through C: by choosing the custom installation options and choosing the destinations manually. Whereas the majority of the files would go to D: the necessary registry edits would be made in C:

It would appear to me that ideally you would want to put everything on that 200GB and loose the 20GB. Or slave it for backup or emergency.

But this goes back to the question of whether you can Clean Install XP on the 200GB (format) and then still recovery your data.

As I do not know the software that you used I cannot say if this is possible.

it's called get data back I paid a lot of money for it because when I was in school I had a virus and it crashed my computer and all my programming projects. It says it supports even after an OS install and it has worked awesome so far. but 20gb is not enough for me that's why I went with the 200 I'm thinking about getting another 200 and using the 20 as my song and small meanial files drive but until then I'm stuck with the 20 and the 200 I only have 1.26 GB on my 20 left because I recovered what I could that would fit onto it but after I delete it I might have 3 or so GBs left that's not enough for SA.

That's why I had two OS's installed for monsterous programs like this to run from the other drive and not take up my valued 20gb space.

I would try to Clean Install XP on the 200 and hope that that program restores your programs & data on the 200.

Putting the 200 as Primary Master.

If this succeeds I would move anything you want from the 20 over to the 200.

If there are programs on the 20 they would need to be reinstalled on the 200 but data files will transfer.

This is all putting a lot of trust into that get data back program but it appears to be doing a good job to this point.

well I did the clean install of xp on the 200 but I recovered the files to it before so I don't think the songs or videos work and when I try to boot directly from the D drive it says ntldr not found push ctrl alt delete.

I haven't tried the program since I installed on the 200. But when I run the XP cd it gives me the option to either boot from the C or D drive but it really says xp pro and then xp pro.

well I reformatted again and then I installed sp2 and ntldr is still missing what is going on?

then I copied the ntldr from the system pack files and it said press a to boot or something.

then I copied the ntldr boot.ini and ntdetect from my c drive and it still says press a to boot.

This is UNBELIEVABLE I've never had this many problems like this before at this point, I want my original data back but I would almost rather have the xp work on the 200.