hdd question.

[FieryGoose]

i know i just posted a thread a little while ago, but this is on a different topic so i figured i'd make a new thread.
My question is, is it safe to unplug my main hdd while my comp. is off and plug in another one just to get my secondary one cleared? i want to use it as a slave so do i need to install xp on to it or not? After i get it cleared will stuff work fine if i have both of them pluged in at once when i turn my comp on again or will i really screw things up? I know this is probably a really newb question but i'm not good at hdd stuff...

 

[FieryGoose]

*bump* any answers would be great.

 

[duffers20]

so you have 1 disc with XP installed and the other disc you want to use as a slave drive. If you want to just clear out the secondary drive to use as a 2nd drive, then you will be able to plug the 2 discs in at teh same time as long as you set the proper boot sequence so that it boots to the disc with teh right xp installation. once there you can format, backup stuff to the other disc.

 

[FieryGoose]

so you have 1 disc with XP installed and the other disc you want to use as a slave drive. If you want to just clear out the secondary drive to use as a 2nd drive, then you will be able to plug the 2 discs in at teh same time as long as you set the proper boot sequence so that it boots to the disc with teh right xp installation. once there you can format, backup stuff to the other disc.

Yea, that's what i would like to do but even when i set the proper boot sequence my main hdd doesn't boot up to windows, could it be because the hdd that i want to use as a slave used to be used as my primary and has windows xp installed onto it also. If that's the case what should i do to fix the problem?

 

[bryanf445]

do you have the jumpers set correctly??

 

[FieryGoose]

do you have the jumpers set correctly??

Yeah, i'm pretty sure but i don't really like messing with them that much because i'm afriad i will screw somthing up, can i just format the hardrive i want to seperately, and plug it in as if it was the only hardrive i had, by disconnecting my primary drive and only having my slave plugged in.

One of my main questions is that does my slave drive need to have xp installed on it also?

 

[psyno]

The second drive won't need an operating system.

What does happen when you boot up? How do you have the drives connected to your IDE channels? How are the jumpers set?