2 Internal Hard drives.

[chabato]

Hello my name is Ryan I'm currently a student in Canada . I recently bought a new computer , the thing is it had a hard drive in it and i already had a hard drive to begin with. The way it worked out was somehow the man made the "Master" hard drive some crappy little 10 Gig hard drive, and not my 100 Gig, So my 100 is stuck as the slave , which is very irritating . Well the problem is I'm a student and i deal with photos,videos , and word documents a lot. Whenever i download a file or a program it downloads to the 10 Gig, i would really like to know how to make my 100 Gig Hard drive the master and the 10 Gig the slave. If anyone has any information they think would help me out please feel free to post your thoughts. I really don't want to bring it back to the man who bought the computer from, as i think he doesn't really know to much about what he is doing. Well i look forward to hearing from you guys . Thank You

Ryan

 

[linkin]

What you need to do is create a download folder on your secondary hard drive, and have your browser put all downloads in that drive.

 

[johnb35]

Most likely you have one 120 gb hard drive and its partitioned into a 10 gig and then a 100 gb partitions. You should reinstall windows on a new drive and that will leave you with the full 120gb drive for data.

 

[chabato]

Hi, tank you for the replies. how can i find out if i don't really have 2 Hard drives, and if its just my hard drive all split up?

 

[linkin]

take off the side panel of your computer. touch an unpainted part of the metal case to discharge your static.

look for something like this:

How many of them are there?

 

[thermophilis]

You don't have to open the case. Just right click on my computer and click on manage. Expand the storage section and click on disk management. From there you should be able to tell if you have more then one drive.

 

[chabato]

Ok Yes i do have two hard drives. The 100 Gig HD has 2 partitions and the 10 gig is fine. I was just wondering how to make the 100 gig the "master" and the 10 gig the "slave". I've never even took a computer apart before , so any input will be very helpful!

 

[johnb35]

You would have to reinstall windows on the 100 gb drive. But if there is any data on there, you would have to back it up somewhere before installing windows.

 

[chabato]

So all i have to do is Install my windows XP on the 100 Gig hard drive , and it will become my main HD? Also i have a 8 gigabyte memory stick handy if you could tell me how to back the stuff up then that would be great,and also what i should back up:-0. Also the G: drive partition on the 100 gig HD says the capacity is 6.8 gigabytes and it has 2 folders inside and one file . Folders="Recovery,Recycler" and the file =CMLDR.srm. Again the capacity is 6.8 gigabytes it says that only 508 MB is free, but both the folders are empty and the file is only 2kb in size. Im kind of puzzled. Again thank you for all the posts,im slowly getting to where in need to get , i look forward to reading your responses. If anyone would like to email me and info my email is [email protected] . Thank you for your time .

 

[Flaring Afro]

Don't bother reinstalling windows just for that. Just make all your downloads go to your other hard drive. What internet browser do you use?

 

[chabato]

Hi, I use firefox currently IE sucks imo. I would rather just re-install windows anyways since this computer still has files from my old pc , which are now useless. So then all i have to do is just re-install the windows cd on the 100 gig harddrive and it will make that my main one ? Or am i missing some information , sounds easy enough for me . Let me know if I'm correct. Also i think the man who sold me the computer gave me a pirated copy of XP , But i still have my own . Will my old disk work on my new computer? Thank you again.

 

[Flaring Afro]

^ Im not too familiar with store bought xp. but I think it would if not being used on another computer. If it came with another computer, it should only work with that computer's motherboard.

I understand liking the clean feeling from the reinstall, but if you do ever decide to switch download location, http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/internet/firefox/quick-tip-change-firefox-download-file-location/.

I believe you will also have to go into the bios and switch which hard drive it tries to boot from. Not sure if you would have to or not but it's not hard at all. Also, don't bother for with the imo because internet explorer does suck, especially for security reasons lol.

 

[chabato]

OK I'm back again . I'm just going to do a clean re-install of my windows, But i need to know which files to keep ? I'm not sure what i should delete or keep? Also about my G: drive it says its basically full , BUT there's no files what so ever in there ? It was my old recovery drive but its the same computer so should i just delete the folders "Recycler,Recovery" they are both empty and there's just a slr.file sitting there 2kb in size, yet my G" drive partition is 6.6 GB and there's only 570 MB space free. I'm so confused. Also i have 2 Windows folders with the new C:drive and the old C: drive. Is there anything in those folders that wouldn't work on this computer , because my old XP disc is from a Compaq computer , and this computer was just made with different parts.

 

[johnb35]

You wont be able to use the compaq install cd on this "new computer". You will need to buy a new copy of the Operating System. As far as data to back up, you only need the data you put on the drive yourself like music, office files, etc. Everything else can be deleted or partitions deleted and start over.