Reformatting, what to do.

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Priest +

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OKay... So like most of you, I have TONS of files. Multimedia, financial, all the software I've installed, all the saved games. All that good stuff. So how do I reformat my hard drives (plural) with out messing anything up?

Wait wait wait, before you answer that question let me tell you my setup and ask another question. I have 1 160 GB SATA HDD and 2 40 GB IDE HDDs. Win XP Pro is on one of the 40s and Home is on the 160. the XP Pro is keeping that IDE drive showing as a C:Drive. How do I make my SATA my C Drive? Is that when your installing the OS and it asks you press F6 to setup any third party controllers??? Even though my SATA is connected directly to the MOBO not through a PCI expansion card?

HELP ME HELP ME
 
Windows likes to make other drives your C drives before an SATA drive. I would install with only the SATA drive plugged in first. And yes.. use the F6 option to load the SATA drivers (unless you have a new XP SP2 CD which will probably have them on already). You'll need a floppy and the SATA driver for your controller. You also need to turn "boot from other devices" to "on" or "yes" in order to boot from that SATA controller also.

Even if you have onboard media card readers, XP has a bad habit of making one of those drives your C drive. Once you have a C drive, you can't change it.

I'll also ask the question that Peach asked... Why both home and pro?

And one more thing... if this stuff really is important to you, I'd suggest a backup. Don't trust your data to just one hard drive.
 
nomar said:
use the F6 option to load the SATA drivers (unless you have a new XP SP2 CD which will probably have them on already). You'll need a floppy and the SATA driver for your controller. You also need to turn "boot from other devices" to "on" or "yes" in order to boot from that SATA controller also.

And one more thing... if this stuff really is important to you, I'd suggest a backup. Don't trust your data to just one hard drive.
Click to expand...

I have WIN XP Home w/ SP2. So the only thing I need to do is boot from other devices?

Methods of backup? What do I do?
 
Priest + said:
I have WIN XP Home w/ SP2. So the only thing I need to do is boot from other devices?

Methods of backup? What do I do?
Click to expand...

I would say yes... assuming SP2 has the driver for your SATA controller. If not, you'll need a floppy and that driver.

Methods of backup... use those 40Gigs if you can, or get a portable/external drive. Or build a home NAS server. I use "ez back it up" - it is freeware and works good, and can back up over network drives.
 
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