Hard Disk Partitioning Problem !!

[scott274]

So I finally brought a Seagate IDE 160GB hard disk since my old Samsung IDE 80GB one was giving me lots of trouble.

Just got it installed in my PC cabinet by a technician since I don't know much about the hardware part. Now I will be installing windows (XP) and partitioning rest of the disk alone.
The new Seagate disk has master jumper settings while the old Samsung disk has been fitted with slave jumper settings. In Bios the Seagate disk is shown under primary master and the Samsung disk is primary slave.

Currently the windows I am operating on (XP upgrade from win2kpro) is on the old samsung disk, C drive. The other partitions on the old hard disk are D, E, F and G (CDROM) drives. The new seagate disk is still unpartitioned.
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k292/abs724/Screencaps/DiskM3-24-2009-50644AM.jpg
In the C drive apart from windows there is some data which I have kept temporarily, don't want to lose and the other drives are almost full as seen above.

Now what I want here is to do a fresh windows install to the new seagate drive and also want the drive letter (of the drive which I will be creating during the windows setup process) to be C. Then I want to partition the rest of the new disk so that they have D, E and F drive letters. The existing four drive (currently C,D,E & F) on the old disk can have any other paths and I want to use them as storage drives only.

Any way this can be done ??

 

[Deleted member 7160]

The best way to do this is, plug only your new HDD(primary) partition it and install win XP on it (C,D,E,F..how much ever you want).. after everything is done, plug in your old HDD (secondary).. your old HDD drives will show from H,I,J..... Drive G being your DVD/CD rom... This is the best solution I feel.. others may have diff opinion or suggestions..

 

[scott274]

I unfortunately don't know much about hardware installation etc. That is why I had the new disk fixed in the PC cabinet by a technician.

 

[Deleted member 7160]

Its pretty simple.. open your cabinet and you would see the wire connecting to your old HDD (make some kinda mark on thw wire which u plugged out), just plug out that wire and install XP.. after that just reconnect.. simple..its not rocket science.. and (touchwood).. if something happens.. u can always ask ur frnds who know abt hardware or the tecnician to fix that for you...

 

[scott274]

Will taking out just the power connection of the old hard disk do or will I have to remove the IDE cable as well.Not that I have made up my mind to do that. I hope somebody has a good software solution to this problem.

 

[blu_6779]

The option given above is the best and safe option. You can either remove the power cable or the ide cable or both...

 

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[vishalrao]

Yes, do it after disconnecting the old drive. But note (if I remember correctly) that once you partition the new drive as C, D, E and F, then after you re-connect the old drive then C will be first new partion and D will now be the old drive's first partition, see?Then inside WinXP computer management option inside control panel->administrative options you can re-assign the drive letters...

 

[scott274]

Just confirming.So I will open the cabinet and pull off the four pin power connection of the old Samsung hard disk (primary slave). Then only the new Seagate disk (primary master) will be left & functional.Then I go ahead with normal Windows XP installation from it's bootable CD I have thereby creating a C drive and rest unpartitioned.Then I will partition the rest of the new disk through disk management so that there will be four drives C, D, E and F. A is Floppy drive and G is CD drive.Then I will shut down system and reconnect the power connection to the old disk. Now when I restart the system there will be C (new windows installation), D (old windows installation), E (new empty), F (new empty), G (CD drive), H (new empty), I (old D drive), J (old E drive), and K (old F drive) in My Computers.From here I can change the drive paths of D, E, F, H, I, J, K drives as desired without any problem right. C drive will be the only one drive whose path will be unchangeable since the current windows installation will be on it, isn't it?No need to do anything else like change hard disks jumper settings etc etc.

 

[Deleted member 7160]

Exactly.. you are right.. You dont need to change the jumper of any HDD..

 

[scott274]

Problem solved. Actually the new IDE cable was more easier to pull out and reattach than the power connection. The power connection was really tight, completely unmovable :SAnd the old "C" drive was not renamed D but H followed by I, J & K drives (old D, E & F). The new "D" drive on the new disk remained as D.Thanks guys, repped Piyush, Blu and Vishal bhai 🙂