2 hard drives

[chipwich]

I am adding an old hard drive to my rig and want the old one to be the one that boots up (so i can use windows Xp) I'm not sure how to do this, since the new hard drive is the one that boots.

[Vricklund]

How old? Do they have SATA or IDE connectors?

If they're SATA drives you can boot into BIOS and change the boot order of the disks there. Should be under boot, boot options or something like that in BIOS.

If they're IDE drives you will also have to put the drive on the master connector of the IDE cable (master goes on the end of the cable) and set the jumper switches on the drives to slave/master respectivly.

If it's a mix of drives I would suggest BIOS as well.

[chipwich]

I can change it with BIOS, but I get a windows error when I try to boot up the old one.

[grumbler]

I can change it with BIOS, but I get a windows error when I try to boot up the old one.

What happens if you just boot the system with the old drive (alone) installed?

It may have designated the C partition on the new drive as the active boot partition.  Boot with the old one alone (if possible), then add the new one as added hardware (ie physically connect the new drive with the machine booted).

[chipwich]

Same windows error, and I get a BSOD when trying to reinstall windows on the old hard drive.

[Vricklund]

What does the BSOD say? Could the drive be faulty? Boot up with the new drive and right click on the old drive. Perform a disc check. If there's no problem with the discs then I would format it again (not quick format) and reinstall.

[chipwich]

Perform a disc check.

How do I do this?

[Vricklund]

Right click on the drive -> Properties -> Tools -> Error checking

[DontSayBanana]

Thought.  Have we resolved whether or not you've got a SATA or an IDE hard drive?  If it's IDE, you could BSOD from the jumpers being set incorrectly, IIRC.

[grumbler]

Thought.  Have we resolved whether or not you've got a SATA or an IDE hard drive?  If it's IDE, you could BSOD from the jumpers being set incorrectly, IIRC.

Unless it is a really old drive, I think the default is no jumper and the drive is set to "cable select."  Worth checking on, though.

[chipwich]

Unless it is a really old drive, I think the default is no jumper and the drive is set to "cable select."  Worth checking on, though.
How do I determine IDE or SATA?

For reference the old hard dravie was purchased a eyar ago.

[grumbler]

Unless it is a really old drive, I think the default is no jumper and the drive is set to "cable select."  Worth checking on, though.
How do I determine IDE or SATA?

For reference the old hard dravie was purchased a eyar ago.

I think pretty near all drive sold a year ago were SATA, so the point is moot.

IDE drives use the gray ribbon cable.  Yours probably uses a thin orange cable. Is so?

[chipwich]

yes

[Vricklund]

If the disc check reported nothing out of the ordinary and a full format/reinstall didn't work, then it's something more sinister.

I'm thinking something along the lines of wrong SATA drivers, trying run RAID and/or incorrct BIOS settings.

Does the rig boot with the old drive as slave? Can you read and write to it? How far do you get when trying to install XP?

[grumbler]

Its a SATA drive, so no masters or slaves.

Chip, can you reformat the old drive using the XP disk in the CD drive?  Leave the new drive unconnected for the moment, so you don't do something really unwanted, ans start the machine with the old drive connected, the XP disk in the CD drive, and BIOS set to boot from the CD drive first.  This should allow you to reformat the drive and re-install XP without ever going into the version of windows on the drive (which may have drivers for an incompatible motherboard or some other OEM setting that won't work in the new rig).

A word of advice though:  you want your OS on the fastest drive you have.  If you are using an older (probably slower) drive to run XP, you will probably find that it is slower than the OS on the newer drive.

Also, you will need ot make sure that any data you want accessible to both OSs is on a separate partition from whatever OS is on the newer drive.  The C partition on the newer drive will not be visible when booting from the C partition on the older drive.