adding a second hard drive to windows xp sp1

[dirtfarmer]

i just got a maxtor 120 gb hard drive on e bay (102.50 can-78.57 us) deal or or not not sure yet
any way

i have a 20 gb drive right now which is use for window photo games and all other
i will add the 120 bg as a slave drive all the cable power and 2 slot are ther so that ok
but question what type of problem can i be looking at when i install new drive ?????????
would windows xp see the total 120 gb drive ?????????

would it be a good idea to divide it in half or leave it the way it is any idea new to this ???????????
any info on how to would be welcome

[pave_spectre]

XP can see the full 120 gig so that shouldnt be a problem though you may have to format it first before it will show up.

Whether or not you partition the drive is up to you, but it can be useful from an organisational standpoint, allowing you to install specific programs or store specific file types on each partition, making them that little bit easier to find.

[Budfred]

I believe I read recently that WinXP can work with the whole drive if you copy of WinXP is formatted in NTFS, but if it is FAT32 it will limit the size of partitions. However, you can partition and format the whole drive as a bunch of little drives....

[classicsoftware]

The size of the partitions will depend on your motherboard (bios) and the file system you choose. The largest FAT32 partation is 40 GB (I think). You can make one huge partition if you use NTFS.

I would however partation the drive into smaller units for organizational purposes. If you have XP you can easily control the drive letter. So lets say you want all of your photos in one 30 GB partition, you can call it the P drive. It's alot easier to remember your photos are one the p drive than in
c:\program files\whatever the app is called\data folder

I would download the diagnostic/install software from the drive manufacturer's web site and follow the prompts. The software will guide you.

Good luck

[rond36]

The system BIOS has nothing to do with partition size limits it deals with the whole drive.

This was copied from MSKB Q314463 (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314463)

You cannot format a volume larger than 32 gigabytes (GB) in size using the FAT32 file system during the Windows XP installation process. Windows XP can mount and support FAT32 volumes larger than 32 GB (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB by using the Format tool during Setup. If you need to format a volume that is larger than 32 GB, use the NTFS file system to format it. Another option is to start from a Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) Startup disk and use the Format tool included on the disk.

For additional information about how to use a Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) Startup disk to format a hard disk, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q255867 How to Use Fdisk and Format to Partition/Repartition a Hard Disk (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;255867)

NOTE: When you attempt to format a FAT32 partition that is larger than 32 GB during the Windows XP installation process, the format operation fails near the end of the process, and you may receive the following error message:

Logical Disk Manager: Volume size too big.

After Win XP is installed it can create and format FAT 32 partitions larger than 32GB.

I have partitioned and formatted one of my 100GB drives with 1 FAT 32 partition using the Win XP disk management utility.

It is a good idea to partition a drive that big in to smaller partitions around 30-40GB. Create an extended partition and 5 or 6 logical drives.

[dirtfarmer]

yes i was thinking of makeing at least 2 of 60gb each but maybe 3 40 gb
i also was thinking maybe of makeing one fat32 and installing window 98se to play game i can not on xp but not sure of the way to do it or even if i should, i heard installing 98 can cause a proble with booting xp

[Paul Komski]

If you format the first partition of your new drive as FAT32 in anticipation of installing Win98 onto it then make sure it is also a primary partition and that it is marked as active.

If the first HDD boot device set in the BIOS is HDD0 (which it almost certainly is) then installing Win98 (even onto the new slave drive but from the old master drive with C as a FAT partition) will overwrite things on HDD0 such that you wont be able to boot into WinXP until you run a repair installation on it.

If however you change the boot order to boot first from HDD1 (your new slave drive) and install Win98 onto it then this should give you a working bootable Win98 installation on your new slave drive which you can use when you want it.

The only messy bit is that you will have to go into the BIOS and change which HDD you desire to boot from whenever you want to change from the master to the slave and vice versa.

If you want to go this route and are afraid of overwriting the boot processes on your master then take the master out while you install Win98 on your new HDD and then go back to a master(winxp) slave(98) configuration once you have finished - using the BIOS to select which one to boot from as before.

PS FAT32 volumes can be up to 2TB (theoretically at least) but this requires the use of very large cluster sizes.

ref: http://www.serverwatch.com/tutorials/print.php/10825_2239651_2

[rond36]

For more information about multi-booting see:

How to multi-boot Windows XP (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gettingstarted/multiboot.asp)
Microsoft Expert Zone Multi-booting made easy (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/russel/september10.asp)
MSKB How to multi-boot Windows XP (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q306559)