Help with new HDD

[spades]

I'm new to video editing and after completing my first DVD of my son, I realized that I will need more space to do editing. Here is what I have:

Sony Vaio, P4 1.8 GHz, 256 MB PC 133, 60 GB, Pioneer DVD-117, I/O Magic 8x DVD+/-RW, Win XP SP1

The 60 GB HDD is split into 20 GB (C drive, FAT32), and 40 GB (D drive, NTFS)

I just bought a Western Digital 200 GB, 7200 rpm, 8 MB cache. I would like to use the WD drive as my master (since it's faster) and move the 60 GB as a slave. Here is what I want to do:

200 GB partitions:

- 40 GB for programs - FAT32
- 60 GB for music, pictures - NTFS
- 100 GB for video editing - NTFS

I want to move everything from the current C drive into the 40 Gb partition. Then I want to take the current 60 GB drive and reformat to use for back up.

I do not have a Win XP OEM CD, just the Sony CD's that came with my computer. I'm not even sure what's on them. I don't want to lose any of my data that is on the current C drive. Is what I want to do feasible? If so, how do I do it?

Thanks

[redwudz]

I would just save myself a lot of problems and put the new drive in as slave. Not sure why you would want Fat32 partitions unless you are running W98, no real advantage I am aware of. If you want to partition the new drive, I would just create 2 partitions, maybe 150MB video and 50MB backup and the rest. The more you deal with video, the faster you will find the drive will fill up. The boot drive is not as important to be fast. I doubt you would notice any difference with a faster boot drive as far as program performance goes. Defrag your old drive, also.

[snafu099]

ours is not to question why, ours is just to do or die!

What you want to do is feasable. If your new drive is a "boxed" purchase it most likely has a cd/floppy disc that has software to facilitate the transfer of everything from old drive to new one.

Third party software like driveimage, ghost , partion magic should do what you want. There was a post on this forum for a free partioning program also. I did not install/use it, but did follow link to see what it did compared to retail software, looked good.

There was also a post on using dual install/boot of xp(os?) to facilitate quick and easy backup of system without using third party software which also could provide a method.

[rallynavvie]

So many people want to partition their drives so much

The only partition I've ever found useful is one on your boot drive with your OS and apps on it and that's it. That way if your system is acting up or drivers start a civil war you can reset back to a good backup of that partition, but then Windows System Restore does the same thing to good measure without messing with files you have saved. I've used System Restore several times getting the desired result.

[iooi]

I just bought a Western Digital 200 GB, 7200 rpm, 8 MB cache. I would like to use the WD drive as my master (since it's faster) and move the 60 GB as a slave. Here is what I want to do:

200 GB partitions:

- 40 GB for programs - FAT32
- 60 GB for music, pictures - NTFS
- 100 GB for video editing - NTFS

Leave the 60 as is and add the 200 as a slave, you wont notice the diffrence and that 60 gig will soon be lost with video. Just add programs to the 60 gig and Format the new drive to NTFS as 1 partition and use that for your video editing.
You can always use folders to store stuff...

[jtommyj]

I've done this a few times myself. My "opinion" is to always do a fresh install but since you don't have that option I would use Norton Ghost to make an image of your 60 GB drive onto the new HDD. If you choose disc one to disc two it will include your 20GB fat 32 partition and make the rest NTFS since it is greater that 40 GB. If you want to further partition after that use Partition magic but since everything is on the same physical HD you won't reap any perfomance benefits so I'd leave it alone and just use folders.

Then I would reformat your 60 GB drive into NTFS and just use it as storage. That way if you are using disc one to do your work then are saving to disc two (your 60GB) it won't have to read and write to the same disc. If you want to later, move your file over to the NTFS partition on the new drive.

Tom