Posted August 8, 200519 yr Well, let me be the first to break in this area... I'm trying to install a second hard drive, but I'm honestly too scared to do so. Anyways, I have an old 20 GB Hard Drive with some space into it, if I wanted to, could I install it without having any boot problems (I.e. Computer tries to boot from slave drive, which it will be.) And if I install it, can I defragment it to reobtain more space? Call me a n00b, do whatever, but please help me out.
August 8, 200519 yr Yes, you could just install it as a slave drive. If your on WindowsXP this is really simple because once you boot into Windows you can use the Disk Management tool to format/partition the new drive. Then you'd have your existing 20g HD as your C: Drive and the new HD as your D: drive or however you partion it. Rather easy to use and nice. You could also transfer all the data from the old drive to the new with a drive transfer program such as Casper XP. Free trial version on Download.com. This program and ones like it can transfer your entire harddrive to another harddrive through Windows. You'd hook the new drive up fist as a slave drive, get Windows to see it, then use this program to transfer all the data including Windows to it, then remove the old drive and hook the new up as the master and boot up. You could even once this is done, format the old drive and install it as the Slave for extra space. Could also just remove old drive, install new in its place and reinstall Windows from stratch to the new drive. Choices are many. Hope this helps.
August 8, 200519 yr If you don't feel like messing around inside the case just get an external drive. All you do is plug the USB plug into a port and it's ready to use. If you want to go that route I'd buy this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144383
August 8, 200519 yr i got a 2nd drive to put linux onto, and i just plugged it into the comp using the cables that were sitting around without dealing with the boot master / slave bullsnap i just go into bios and disable whatever drive i don't want to use. for example, if i want to use linux i just disable the windows drive and the linux drive becomes master automatically
August 9, 200519 yr Author Damn thx OMP, everything seems to be working as plan. I had 40 Gigs, but I needed to add the last 20 to make it 60. Thanks Minkey and swp for the extra help.
August 9, 200519 yr theMinkey']i got a 2nd drive to put linux onto, and i just plugged it into the comp using the cables that were sitting around without dealing with the boot master / slave bullsnap i just go into bios and disable whatever drive i don't want to use. for example, if i want to use linux i just disable the windows drive and the linux drive becomes master automatically use a bootmanager like LILO or Grub, so much easier. you get a menu and you pick windows or linux.
