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/k2...09-50644AM.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 ??

[pimpom]

Yes, you can assign drive letters in any order you like from Disk Management. Judging from your screenshot, you already know how to go there. Right-click on any existing drive and choose "Change drive letter and path" from the pop-up menu.

There are different approaches to doing what you want. Perhaps the simplest way will be to connect only the new HDD at first, partition it and install Windows. The drive letters will be C, D, E, F.

After that, add the Samsung. The existing partitions on it should automatically be assigned G, H, I, J, K. If not, i.e., if the drive letters of the two HDDs become mixed up, you can change them as you like using the method in the first para above.

If the drive letter you want for a particular partition is already used for another partition, temporarily change the drive letter to an unused one. For example, if you want to assign F to a partition but it's already assigned to another partition, change the existing partition to, say, T. After changing the desired partition to F, you can change the T drive to whatever letter you want it to have.

[Scott274]

I don't know how to connect-reconnect hard disk inside the PC cabinet. Part reason why I had asked a technician to install the new disk in my PC with jumper settings etc.

About changing the drive letters and paths, they can be changed for D, E, F drives by right clicking the respective drive and selecting "change drive letter and paths". But it cannot be changed for C drive where windows is installed which I am currently using as seen in the screenshot.

[pimpom]

OK. This is going to take some time. First let me ask you a couple of questions:

1. Do you know if your hard disks are SATA or PATA (also called IDE)? From your mention of jumper settings, I expect that they are both PATA, but let's make sure.

2. Do you know how to partition a hard disk using DOS or a third-party software like Partition Magic? Do you have such a partitioning software?

BTW, you don't have to change the letter of your current C drive now. That can come after you've partitioned the new HDD and installed Windows on it.

[Scott274]

Both the hard disks, samsung as well as the seagate one are IDE.

Even though I know the theory, I have never partitioned a hard disk before weather in DOS or windows. Unless you count deleting and creating partition during fresh windows install. I have done that before when I installed win2kpro and XP from the start.
I have Partition Magic 8.05 and can install it immediately if needed.

Originally Posted by pimpom

BTW, you don't have to change the letter of your current C drive now. That can come after you've partitioned the new HDD and installed Windows on it.

Somebody told me that if I install windows in the primary master when there is already a windows installation in primary slave in c drive then I will have two windows installations and the one on the primary master will have d letter by default.

[pimpom]

It may be best to go back to my first suggestion which is to disconnect the Samsung drive and install/partition with only the Seagate connected.

Disconnecting the HDD is not difficult. There are two connectors: one wide flat cable for data and one 4-pin connector for power. Use common sense when pulling them out.

Disconnect your computer from the power source completely before you delve inside the CPU. Don't just turn it off. Pull out the mains plugs (including that of the monitor and anything else directly connected to the CPU) from the mains or UPS.

Discharge your body of any possible static electricity by momentarily touching a grounded metal object such as a water tap or pipe.

You may have to apply some force while pulling out the 4-pin Molex connector from the HDD. If necessary, wiggle it from side to side, not up and down.

For the flat data cable, don't pull by the wire alone. Grasp as much of the connector as you can as well. The individual wires and the plastic bar clamping them to the connector are rather delicate. You may have to wiggle it a bit too.

That's all there is to it. Don't let the precautionary warnings scare you off Just use your common sense.
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I have to turn in "early" tonight. We can take it up again tomorrow. You can email me if you like at pjdd (at) rediffmail (dot) com