Under Windows ( without RAID) drives are divided up into partitions, and those partitions are formatted using structures such as NTFS, FAT and FAT32 Partitions can be Primary or extended primary partitions can be set as bootable Partitions can also be set as visible or hidden
Your system BIOS will look for the first partition marked visible bootable and try to start the boot process from that partition The OS startup will then look for visible bootable partitions, then the other visible partitions The OS startup will then present you with a list of the bootable OS's ( or just continue trying to boot if there is only 1 OS available ) At this point your optional OS list may include multiple OS's from both the Primary and extended partitions, because you can have multiple OS's on a partition - such as Win98, Win200 and WinXP - all in different directories. If your 'data' drive only contains a non-primary partition then you have the option of changing the partitions reducing the size of the data partition, then moving it up towards the end of the drive, creating space at the beginning of the drive in which you can get the OS install process to create a bootable Active partition that will contain the OS Note - CAN - but there is a risk that the restructuring may lose all your data. If you believe your old boot drive is going to die soon then why not get a replacement drive, (make sure you get a cloning program supplied with the drive, and that your motherboard BIOS and OS will run a drive as big as the new one Copy the old drive onto the new drive ( swap the new drive for the old data drive to do that, not forgetting to set the jumpers to make one drive into a 'slave' and the other a master) Adjust the size of the new OS partition (5GB min unused space if using a DVD, 10 if using a DL DVD ) You should now be able to boot from the new drive - swap out the old OS drive, set the appropriate jumpers check the new OS works OK Then add in your data drive Perhaps copying the data into a new 'extended' partition on the new drive Now you can restructure your data drive to hold a backup copy of the OS - so if you get hit by a virus or other nasty happening you can just swap from the normal drive to the backup Check the old copy works, and if so copy the OS partition back to the new drive ( you will have to deal with the loss of your personal profile, desktop and other stuff you had on the bad OS partition - so remember to copy that stuff to the data partition once you have booted from the recovery drive - you can copy most of that back into the restored OS partition before you restart using the restored OS) Not ideal - Ghost and driveimage run regularly will be better but that will get you a running system very quickly JimB. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Bembridge, CET, CNE, MCP" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 9:17 PM Subject: Re: Windows XP installation Question If you move the data to your second drive you will be ok, but it will overwrite you C drive when you reinstall. Greg >>> ListMail<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 04/08/05 04:37PM >>> If I install Windows XP Pro on a drive that currently contains only data, is there a way to preserve the data or will the installation automatically erase the existing data on that drive without giving me the option to preserve that data? (I have a computer with 2 drives. I think the c drive is beginning to go bad. As a result, I want to make the data drive the c drive, install the OS on that drive and then use the former data drive as the c boot drive and get rid of the old c drive.) Thanks. Steve -- ---------------------------------------- ALL messages to the list MUST include a descriptive subject. To Change your email Address for this list, send the following message: CHANGE WIN-HOME your_old_address your_new_address to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note carefully that both old and new addresses are required. -- ---------------------------------------- ALL messages to the list MUST include a descriptive subject. To Change your email Address for this list, send the following message: CHANGE WIN-HOME your_old_address your_new_address to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note carefully that both old and new addresses are required. -- ---------------------------------------- WIN-HOME Archives: http://PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM/archives/WIN-HOME.html Contact the List Owner about problems: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unofficial Win-Home List Members Profiles Page http://winhome.wavijo.com/
