Transferring old data to new drive

[Alienraptor]

Well, my pair of 80GB hard drives is not nearly enough for all the storage I need these days. And my current installation of Windows leaves much to be desired, having been ill-maintained for much of its existence (over a year now). I know, my fault.

But, now that I am considering buying a new hard drive (maybe a 320GB), I came upon the question of how to transfer select pieces of data (for instance, about 30GB of music) onto my new drive, but into a fresh install of Windows? I don't want to clone the drive over, because I want a clean installation, but I also want to keep huge amounts of my old data (music, documents, pictures). Is there something that lets me do this? Thanks.

[MJCfromCT]

Step 1: Install windows on your 320 GB drive (I recommend putting windows on its' own partition, but that is another matter)

Step 2: When windows is up and running, shut down computer

Step 3: Open up computer, install 80 GB drive as a slave drive on the IDE cable (assuming it is IDE)

Step 4: Turn on computer, windows will recognize the "new" 80 GB drive, and you can drag-and-drop any files you want.


If you really want, you could just leave the 80GB in as the slave drive, giving yourself another 80 gigs of space in addition to your 320 GB drive.

[Alienraptor]

Hmm...actually it's a pair of 80GB drives, in RAID 0. Yes they are IDE, in fact they are actually on a separate RAID controller card and the configuration dates from my last computer, which now does not exist in any functioning state.

So, unless my motherboard can run IDE drives in RAID 0 (which I don't believe is the case), I need to get the PCI RAID controller into slave mode. No idea how to do this, though.

Also, assuming I get far enough, the Windows installations on the two drives won't conflict? I'll just see the system files as data on the old drives?

[Alienraptor]

Hmm...no more ideas? I might have to slave a third hard drive and use it as a go-between if I can't figure out how to slave a PCI RAID controller.

[Bones]

Hmm...actually it's a pair of 80GB drives, in RAID 0. Yes they are IDE, in fact they are actually on a separate RAID controller card and the configuration dates from my last computer, which now does not exist in any functioning state.

So, unless my motherboard can run IDE drives in RAID 0 (which I don't believe is the case), I need to get the PCI RAID controller into slave mode. No idea how to do this, though.

What is "slave mode"?

Just plug in your PCI RAID card and hook up the drives to it. Check your BIOS boot order, and all should be well - provided you have the RAID drivers installed in your new Windows installation.

Also, assuming I get far enough, the Windows installations on the two drives won't conflict? I'll just see the system files as data on the old drives?

The BIOS will boot the first parition it sees with the bootable flag set. If your boot order is correct, there shouldn't be a problem.

I honestly can't see a problem with any of this, it should be simple to do.

[Alienraptor]

Oh. Right.