Larger HD on Win XP?

I'd welcome some advice please. I have two identical HDs at present on
my AMD Athlon XP1800, 512MB, both 60GB 7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133
EIDE with 2MB buffer. Although it's been so long that I've forgotten
exactly how I did it, they are partitioned as follows:

HD #1
-----
C: Win XP system 15 GB
D: Data etc 45 GB

HD #2
-----
E: Old copy of Win XP 15 GB
F: Data backup etc 45 GB

I want to replace HD 2 with a 200 GB drive, as I'm running out of
space. I'd then use the new F: partition for all my extra data, as
well as backup. Not sure if I'd make a new 'recovery' copy of Win XP
on the new E: partition; it quickly gets so old that its usefulness in
the event of C: failing is arguable. And (touches wood), in 3 years so
far I've never had to use it in earnest.

So, my question: If just physically remove and replace HD #2, using
whatever jumper settings I find on the old one, and reboot, will
everything come up OK? No surprises, no new partition letters to throw
me, no daunting error messages, etc?

Any practical advice would be much appreciated please.

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

Terry Pinnell wrote:

I'd welcome some advice please. I have two identical HDs
at present on my AMD Athlon XP1800, 512MB, both 60GB
7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer.

Although it's been so long that I've forgotten
exactly how I did it, they are partitioned as follows:

HD #1
-----
C: Win XP system 15 GB
D: Data etc 45 GB

HD #2
-----
E: Old copy of Win XP 15 GB
F: Data backup etc 45 GB

I want to replace HD 2 with a 200 GB drive, as I'm running out of space.
I'd then use the new F: partition for all my extra data, as well as backup.

Not sure if I'd make a new 'recovery' copy of Win XP
on the new E: partition; it quickly gets so old that its
usefulness in the event of C: failing is arguable.

Yep.

And (touches wood), in 3 years so far I've never had to use it in earnest.

So, my question: If just physically remove and replace
HD #2, using whatever jumper settings I find on the
old one, and reboot, will everything come up OK?

Yes.

No surprises, no new partition letters to throw
me, no daunting error messages, etc?

You will have to partition and format it and
you can do that in disk management in XP.

Any practical advice would be much appreciated please.

Its important to ensure that at least SP1 is installed with
XP before you do that, and you might as well install SP2
if you havent got either installed already. Thats because
that is necessary for support of drives over 128GB.

"Rod Speed" wrote:

Terry Pinnell wrote:

I'd welcome some advice please. I have two identical HDs
at present on my AMD Athlon XP1800, 512MB, both 60GB
7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer.

Although it's been so long that I've forgotten
exactly how I did it, they are partitioned as follows:

HD #1
-----
C: Win XP system 15 GB
D: Data etc 45 GB

HD #2
-----
E: Old copy of Win XP 15 GB
F: Data backup etc 45 GB

I want to replace HD 2 with a 200 GB drive, as I'm running out of space.
I'd then use the new F: partition for all my extra data, as well as backup.

Not sure if I'd make a new 'recovery' copy of Win XP
on the new E: partition; it quickly gets so old that its
usefulness in the event of C: failing is arguable.

Yep.

And (touches wood), in 3 years so far I've never had to use it in earnest.

So, my question: If just physically remove and replace
HD #2, using whatever jumper settings I find on the
old one, and reboot, will everything come up OK?

Yes.

No surprises, no new partition letters to throw
me, no daunting error messages, etc?

You will have to partition and format it and
you can do that in disk management in XP.

Any practical advice would be much appreciated please.

Its important to ensure that at least SP1 is installed with
XP before you do that, and you might as well install SP2
if you havent got either installed already. Thats because
that is necessary for support of drives over 128GB.

Thanks for that fast and helpful reply, Rod.

I have SP1. Had a bad experience with my attempt to install SP2 (but
can't swear some of that at least wasn't down to me), so I'm sticking
for now.

One short follow-up if I may please. About a year ago, I arranged
things so that when my PC boots, I'm offered:

- Win XP Home #1 (which is my usual C: system)
- Win XP Home #2 (which would be my E: system hopefully, if I'd ever
needed it
- Recovery Console

Will the absence of an E: partition at the time of that first boot
screw things up at all please?

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

Terry Pinnell wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Terry Pinnell wrote

I'd welcome some advice please. I have two identical HDs
at present on my AMD Athlon XP1800, 512MB, both 60GB
7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer.

Although it's been so long that I've forgotten
exactly how I did it, they are partitioned as follows:

HD #1
-----
C: Win XP system 15 GB
D: Data etc 45 GB

HD #2
-----
E: Old copy of Win XP 15 GB
F: Data backup etc 45 GB

I want to replace HD 2 with a 200 GB drive, as I'm running out of
space. I'd then use the new F: partition for all my extra data, as
well as backup.

Not sure if I'd make a new 'recovery' copy of Win XP
on the new E: partition; it quickly gets so old that its
usefulness in the event of C: failing is arguable.

Yep.

And (touches wood), in 3 years so far I've never had to use it in
earnest.

So, my question: If just physically remove and replace
HD #2, using whatever jumper settings I find on the
old one, and reboot, will everything come up OK?

Yes.

No surprises, no new partition letters to throw
me, no daunting error messages, etc?

You will have to partition and format it and
you can do that in disk management in XP.

Any practical advice would be much appreciated please.

Its important to ensure that at least SP1 is installed with
XP before you do that, and you might as well install SP2
if you havent got either installed already. Thats because
that is necessary for support of drives over 128GB.

Thanks for that fast and helpful reply, Rod.

I have SP1. Had a bad experience with my attempt
to install SP2 (but can't swear some of that at least
wasn't down to me), so I'm sticking for now.

Thats fine, SP1 is enough for that 128G+ problem.

One short follow-up if I may please.

Sure, a rather slower response tho |-)

About a year ago, I arranged things so
that when my PC boots, I'm offered:

- Win XP Home #1 (which is my usual C: system)
- Win XP Home #2 (which would be my E: system
hopefully, if I'd ever needed it - Recovery Console

Will the absence of an E: partition at the time of
that first boot screw things up at all please?

It should manage to work it out for itself. If it cant,
its easy to edit the boot.ini that implements that.

Why not keep an e partition? The reason you made it in the first place
is still valid, it is good to have a backup system drive sometimes. You
can copy the system partition exactly with any number of programs, and
then use something like drive image 2002 for the data. It will take
your data partition, copy the data, and then expand the partition to
fill the rest of your 200 gb drive.

Rod Speed wrote:
Terry Pinnell wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Terry Pinnell wrote

I'd welcome some advice please. I have two identical HDs
at present on my AMD Athlon XP1800, 512MB, both 60GB
7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer.

Although it's been so long that I've forgotten
exactly how I did it, they are partitioned as follows:

HD #1
-----
C: Win XP system 15 GB
D: Data etc 45 GB

HD #2
-----
E: Old copy of Win XP 15 GB
F: Data backup etc 45 GB

I want to replace HD 2 with a 200 GB drive, as I'm running out of
space. I'd then use the new F: partition for all my extra data, as
well as backup.

Not sure if I'd make a new 'recovery' copy of Win XP
on the new E: partition; it quickly gets so old that its
usefulness in the event of C: failing is arguable.

Yep.

And (touches wood), in 3 years so far I've never had to use it in
earnest.

So, my question: If just physically remove and replace
HD #2, using whatever jumper settings I find on the
old one, and reboot, will everything come up OK?

Yes.

No surprises, no new partition letters to throw
me, no daunting error messages, etc?

You will have to partition and format it and
you can do that in disk management in XP.

Any practical advice would be much appreciated please.

Its important to ensure that at least SP1 is installed with
XP before you do that, and you might as well install SP2
if you havent got either installed already. Thats because
that is necessary for support of drives over 128GB.

Thanks for that fast and helpful reply, Rod.

I have SP1. Had a bad experience with my attempt
to install SP2 (but can't swear some of that at least
wasn't down to me), so I'm sticking for now.

Thats fine, SP1 is enough for that 128G+ problem.

One short follow-up if I may please.

Sure, a rather slower response tho |-)

About a year ago, I arranged things so
that when my PC boots, I'm offered:

- Win XP Home #1 (which is my usual C: system)
- Win XP Home #2 (which would be my E: system
hopefully, if I'd ever needed it - Recovery Console

Will the absence of an E: partition at the time of
that first boot screw things up at all please?

It should manage to work it out for itself. If it cant,
its easy to edit the boot.ini that implements that.

"Rod Speed" wrote:

Terry Pinnell wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Terry Pinnell wrote

I'd welcome some advice please. I have two identical HDs
at present on my AMD Athlon XP1800, 512MB, both 60GB
7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer.

Although it's been so long that I've forgotten
exactly how I did it, they are partitioned as follows:

HD #1
-----
C: Win XP system 15 GB
D: Data etc 45 GB

HD #2
-----
E: Old copy of Win XP 15 GB
F: Data backup etc 45 GB

I want to replace HD 2 with a 200 GB drive, as I'm running out of
space. I'd then use the new F: partition for all my extra data, as
well as backup.

Not sure if I'd make a new 'recovery' copy of Win XP
on the new E: partition; it quickly gets so old that its
usefulness in the event of C: failing is arguable.

Yep.

And (touches wood), in 3 years so far I've never had to use it in
earnest.

So, my question: If just physically remove and replace
HD #2, using whatever jumper settings I find on the
old one, and reboot, will everything come up OK?

Yes.

No surprises, no new partition letters to throw
me, no daunting error messages, etc?

You will have to partition and format it and
you can do that in disk management in XP.

Any practical advice would be much appreciated please.

Its important to ensure that at least SP1 is installed with
XP before you do that, and you might as well install SP2
if you havent got either installed already. Thats because
that is necessary for support of drives over 128GB.

Thanks for that fast and helpful reply, Rod.

I have SP1. Had a bad experience with my attempt
to install SP2 (but can't swear some of that at least
wasn't down to me), so I'm sticking for now.

Thats fine, SP1 is enough for that 128G+ problem.

One short follow-up if I may please.

Sure, a rather slower response tho |-)

About a year ago, I arranged things so
that when my PC boots, I'm offered:

- Win XP Home #1 (which is my usual C: system)
- Win XP Home #2 (which would be my E: system
hopefully, if I'd ever needed it - Recovery Console

Will the absence of an E: partition at the time of
that first boot screw things up at all please?

It should manage to work it out for itself. If it cant,
its easy to edit the boot.ini that implements that.


OK, thanks. Tomorrow I may hit Send on my 200 GB order!

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

"Irwin" wrote:

Why not keep an e partition? The reason you made it in the first place
is still valid, it is good to have a backup system drive sometimes. You
can copy the system partition exactly with any number of programs, and
then use something like drive image 2002 for the data. It will take
your data partition, copy the data, and then expand the partition to
fill the rest of your 200 gb drive.

Rod Speed wrote:
Terry Pinnell wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Terry Pinnell wrote

I'd welcome some advice please. I have two identical HDs
at present on my AMD Athlon XP1800, 512MB, both 60GB
7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer.

Although it's been so long that I've forgotten
exactly how I did it, they are partitioned as follows:

HD #1
-----
C: Win XP system 15 GB
D: Data etc 45 GB

HD #2
-----
E: Old copy of Win XP 15 GB
F: Data backup etc 45 GB

I want to replace HD 2 with a 200 GB drive, as I'm running out of
space. I'd then use the new F: partition for all my extra data, as
well as backup.

Not sure if I'd make a new 'recovery' copy of Win XP
on the new E: partition; it quickly gets so old that its
usefulness in the event of C: failing is arguable.

Yep.

And (touches wood), in 3 years so far I've never had to use it in
earnest.

So, my question: If just physically remove and replace
HD #2, using whatever jumper settings I find on the
old one, and reboot, will everything come up OK?

Yes.

No surprises, no new partition letters to throw
me, no daunting error messages, etc?

You will have to partition and format it and
you can do that in disk management in XP.

Any practical advice would be much appreciated please.

Its important to ensure that at least SP1 is installed with
XP before you do that, and you might as well install SP2
if you havent got either installed already. Thats because
that is necessary for support of drives over 128GB.

Thanks for that fast and helpful reply, Rod.

I have SP1. Had a bad experience with my attempt
to install SP2 (but can't swear some of that at least
wasn't down to me), so I'm sticking for now.

Thats fine, SP1 is enough for that 128G+ problem.

One short follow-up if I may please.

Sure, a rather slower response tho |-)

About a year ago, I arranged things so
that when my PC boots, I'm offered:

- Win XP Home #1 (which is my usual C: system)
- Win XP Home #2 (which would be my E: system
hopefully, if I'd ever needed it - Recovery Console

Will the absence of an E: partition at the time of
that first boot screw things up at all please?

It should manage to work it out for itself. If it cant,
its easy to edit the boot.ini that implements that.

Yes, you're probably right. It has certainly been reassuring to know
that I have had some fallback. Just glad I never had to use it! And,
with 200 GB, even with my photos, movies, maps and music, I reckon I
can afford 10 GB for a standby system partition.

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

Terry Pinnell wrote:
"Irwin" wrote:

Why not keep an e partition? The reason you made it in the first
place is still valid, it is good to have a backup system drive
sometimes. You can copy the system partition exactly with any number
of programs, and then use something like drive image 2002 for the
data. It will take your data partition, copy the data, and then
expand the partition to fill the rest of your 200 gb drive.

Rod Speed wrote:
Terry Pinnell wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Terry Pinnell wrote

I'd welcome some advice please. I have two identical HDs
at present on my AMD Athlon XP1800, 512MB, both 60GB
7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer.

Although it's been so long that I've forgotten
exactly how I did it, they are partitioned as follows:

HD #1
-----
C: Win XP system 15 GB
D: Data etc 45 GB

HD #2
-----
E: Old copy of Win XP 15 GB
F: Data backup etc 45 GB

I want to replace HD 2 with a 200 GB drive, as I'm running out of
space. I'd then use the new F: partition for all my extra data,
as well as backup.

Not sure if I'd make a new 'recovery' copy of Win XP
on the new E: partition; it quickly gets so old that its
usefulness in the event of C: failing is arguable.

Yep.

And (touches wood), in 3 years so far I've never had to use it in
earnest.

So, my question: If just physically remove and replace
HD #2, using whatever jumper settings I find on the
old one, and reboot, will everything come up OK?

Yes.

No surprises, no new partition letters to throw
me, no daunting error messages, etc?

You will have to partition and format it and
you can do that in disk management in XP.

Any practical advice would be much appreciated please.

Its important to ensure that at least SP1 is installed with
XP before you do that, and you might as well install SP2
if you havent got either installed already. Thats because
that is necessary for support of drives over 128GB.

Thanks for that fast and helpful reply, Rod.

I have SP1. Had a bad experience with my attempt
to install SP2 (but can't swear some of that at least
wasn't down to me), so I'm sticking for now.

Thats fine, SP1 is enough for that 128G+ problem.

One short follow-up if I may please.

Sure, a rather slower response tho |-)

About a year ago, I arranged things so
that when my PC boots, I'm offered:

- Win XP Home #1 (which is my usual C: system)
- Win XP Home #2 (which would be my E: system
hopefully, if I'd ever needed it - Recovery Console

Will the absence of an E: partition at the time of
that first boot screw things up at all please?

It should manage to work it out for itself. If it cant,
its easy to edit the boot.ini that implements that.

Yes, you're probably right. It has certainly been reassuring to know
that I have had some fallback. Just glad I never had to use it! And,
with 200 GB, even with my photos, movies, maps and music, I reckon I
can afford 10 GB for a standby system partition.

And image of the boot partition makes more sense.

The only reason for a copy of the boot partition
is if you need to be able to boot the copy as
quickly as possible, and you clearly dont.

The short story is that an image is easier to do and harder to stuff up.

Actually, I like both . I always like to have a current image of the
active boot partition, since as just mentioned it is easier to do,
usually more current, and smaller to store. And I like to have a second
bootable partition to boot into to make the image of the first
partition, since I don't like to use the new programs that image an
active windows partition. Surely, one can boot an imaging program from
a floppy or CD and also image the boot partition, but booting from a
second windows partition gives you more networking and external storage
options, and maybe it is just my imagination but it seems to run faster
than running it from floppy. And as an added bonus you can work from
it, experiment with it, etc. So I try to have two boot partitions on
every system, and just juggle them with Bootmagic.

Irwin wrote

Actually, I like both .

What is the point ?

I always like to have a current image of the active
boot partition, since as just mentioned it is easier
to do, usually more current, and smaller to store.

Then you are unlikely to actually use the clone, just because its older.

And I like to have a second bootable partition to boot into to
make the image of the first partition, since I don't like to use
the new programs that image an active windows partition.
Surely, one can boot an imaging program from a floppy or
CD and also image the boot partition, but booting from a
second windows partition gives you more networking and
external storage options,

Sure, but it doesnt need to be a clone of the normally booted partition,
any old OS bootable partition would be fine and a lot smaller.

and maybe it is just my imagination but it
seems to run faster than running it from floppy.

Sure, floppy is dinosaur technology.

And as an added bonus you can work from it, experiment with it, etc.

And it wont fail like floppys do.

So I try to have two boot partitions on every
system, and just juggle them with Bootmagic.

Even the standard built in XP boot manager is easy
enough when you get the hang of the boot.ini syntax and
thats really just the odd way of specifying the partition.