2nd Dedicated Hard Drive

[Gaelin]

I've just bought a second HDD that's identical to my first. (Both 120 GB) I want the second to be dedicated for Video capture and editing.

How do I set them up? What software (and/or peripherals) need to be installed on the dedicated drive?

Gaelin

[gmatov]

Gaelin,

Absolutely nothing!

If XP will detect and format the drive, install it, format it, and use it as one humongous storage drive.

If you want to use it in an emergency, re-install WinXP and choose D:\drive.
Unless XP is different from 98, really different, you can install to the second drive, but the C:\drive will still be the boot drive.

Should you have an incorrectible error, a crash you can't recover from, swap drives. You should be bootable.

3 of the drives in my main machine have Win98 on them, and I go to the other 2 for programs that have been installed several years ago, never re-installed on the newest C:\. No prob. Can even put in one of the other machines and boot. In fact, I use one of them as my diagnostic drive when one of the kids/g'kids machines dies.

Install as C:\ and the machine boots, installs the hardware not installed before, comes up with a Win desktop..

Cheers,

George

[Solarjetman]

Should you have an incorrectible error, a crash you can't recover from, swap drives. You should be bootable.

Not quite. I think that if you want to do this, you have to install Windows while they are already swapped, then put them back. Otherwise the second hard drive will not have a boot sector on it, and since you removed the first, it won't boot. You could however use a floppy to get to it even without the boot sector.

[gmatov]

Solar,

I don't know with XP.

I do know with 98, you choose the drive, it defaults to C:\, unless you have a new drive installed, then when you tell it you want to install to the C:\ drive instead of its default D:\ drive, it warns you that Win may not run right from the "wrong" drive.

[Solarjetman]

No, I am not saying you are wrong, you can install Windows to the second drive. You are absolutely correct in that. But, installing windows to the second drive is not all that happens. When that occurs, it puts an entry on the main drive that "points" to the second drive, called the boot sector. If you install windows on the second drive, but then later remove the first drive, you are removing the boot sector. Thus the computer does not know where any copy of windows lies, even though it is installed. Basically, the computer is still dependent upon that first drive for a fraction of a second to tell it where windows is installed.

If you insert the drives, then install windows (to the C: drive). Swap them, then install windows agian (to drive C: but it would be a different hard drive), then you are putting a copy of the boot sector on each hard drive (pointing to itself). That way, no matter which drive you have as the master, you will have a boot sector the computer can find.

But, even if you did it your way, you still could get the computer to boot into windows, you would just need a boot disk that has the information required to point to the installation of windows.

Of course, windows may put this boot sector on the second drive as well. I do not know. Have you actually tried swapping the drives before? It may very well work. I have never tried.

[Solarjetman]

gaelin,

Sorry if all this is confusing you. If you are not worried about making a backup of windows, you do not need to do anything special, just like gmatov said. Just put it in your computer and have windows partition and format it.

If you are curious about making a fall back copy of windows, stick around. Myself I am curious if gmatov's way works. I hope it does because that would be so much easier than my way.

[gmatov]

Solar,

I think you may be right. I have never actually installed the same OS to D:\.

Win2k to D:\, 98 on C:\, yes.

I think I should have said to put the new one as C:\, install, then swap 'em back.

Then, should he crash, he could swap 'em out and be up again.

Cheers,

George

[g_shocker182]

Keep a backup copy of XP on one. Me and gmatov know this is good.

[Gaelin]

Not confusing at all. It's giving me some things I never thought about.

One question though, if I have the restore/XP disk, why would I want to make a back up copy on the 2nd HDD? ARe there other reasons other than to save time?

gaelin,

Sorry if all this is confusing you. If you are not worried about making a backup of windows, you do not need to do anything special, just like gmatov said. Just put it in your computer and have windows partition and format it.

If you are curious about making a fall back copy of windows, stick around. Myself I am curious if gmatov's way works. I hope it does because that would be so much easier than my way.