Installing a new hard drive with multiple os'es

G

Ghostnotes

New Member
Hello everyone

I just purchased a brand new seagate 300GB ATA/100 and have a few questions about setting it up and moving files.
I'm not new to this in the basic way but i'm not even sure if what i want to do can be done so let me start at the begining.

I have a pc with 4 hard drives 2 internal 2 external, 1st harddrive is a maxtor 160GB almost full, the second is 80Gb almost full.The first external is 80GB almost full and the second external is a 40GB almost full. The problem is I have 4 operating systems: XP PRO SP1/Server 2003enterprise/XP PRO MCE and Vista. As i was reading the setup instructions that came with the new drive it states it will copy over system files along with other files if you want to make it the master, this would be a no brainer if i only had one O/S but i keep my xp pro sp1 that way because I WILL NOT put sp2 on it, that is why i have MCE and Vista because games/apps are coming out now that will not run on sp1.
What I'm trying to do if you figured it out already is make the 300 my master and move most if not all of my "junk" to it

Here is what Seagate says:
Make your new drive the boot drive (optional)
1. Use DiscWizard to copy boot files to your new
Seagate drive. Indicate that you want to boot
your computer from your new Seagate drive
and that you want to keep the old drive in the
system. DiscWizard automatically copies the
system and data files from your old drive to
your new Seagate drive.
If you prefer, you can use the “Copy Files” option
to perform manually those steps that DiscWizard
performs for you automatically, as follows:
a. Double-click on the DiscWizard icon. (If you have
not already installed DiscWizard, see Before you
begin on page 2.)
b. Select Maintenance from the DiscWizard menu.
c. Select Copy files in the maintenance-options
menu.
d. Choose the source and destination hard discs.
e. Start the copy procedure.
2. Reconfigure the drives.
a. With power off, remove both hard drives from
your computer.
b. Change the master/slave jumpers to configure
your new Seagate drive as the master and your
old drive as the slave (refer to the instructions on
page 6, but use different settings).
c. Reinstall both drives in your computer and restart
your computer.
d. Your computer recognises and boots from your
new hard drive. DO NOT repartition or format
the drives. If necessary, see Make sure your
computer detects both drives on page 10 for
BIOS/CMOS setup instructions.

You’re done!
You can now copy files or install software onto your
new Seagate hard drive.


I'm guessing i could remove my internal slave drive and install the 300, run the wizard, partition it into 4 partitions and run through the steps 3 times and then set it to master and remove the old master , reinstall the 4th drive and do it one last time.
Will this work or should i just buy an external usb adapter and just leave the os'es alone and file transfer the rest.
If you need screenshots of my system let me know
I also have partition majic 8.0 that did all of the work before, should i use this if it can be done instead?
I also thought you could not move an O/S from one drive to the next??

Thanks for putting up with this long windedness

+
 
You need to use the Partition Software and make 4 separate partitions on the seagate 300gb then you will have 4 drives (each partition is like a separate hard disk, but it is on one drive) then use the copying software to copy each separate hard disk on to a drive that is on the segate 300gb
(EXAMPLE:C:/D:/E:/F: are on the 300 gb hard disk after you partitioned the drive. you take the first operating system and copy it onto drive C: of the segate 300gb hard disk then the second operating system, copy it onto drive D: Of the segate 300gb hard disk and so on:) the hard disk will copy the entire disk I did it to my drive to upgrade the space and when it was done I swapped drives and it worked great! but the only thing bad about it was that some programs needed the serial number , but mine was a trial i bought (good thing i had the serial number) IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, CLICK MY PICTURE AND ASK ME THE QUESTION CLOSEST TO THE PART YOU ARE AT.
AND TELL ME IF YOU GET IT DONE also when you start up it will display the operating systems and select one and enter and your there! and make it a boot drive!!
 
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sorry for budging in, but does that method also bring along all of the documents and files as well as the OS? and when you hook up the 300GB, do you leave all of the other 4 hard drives in too, and set the 300 as the master?
 
yes it copies everything along documents and os and just set as the masterand thats the only drive you need and if you want to format any of the drives you copied from for more space (i did the calculations and you wont have much free space)

so to put that in shorter words all you have to do is put the 300 gb in as master and put in another formatted disk(if you want more free space)in as a slave so you will have 3 physical drives
 
Thanks for the info

I posted this on 2 other forums and you are the only ones that replied.
I had a pretty good idea it would work i just wanted to be sure. What i'm gonig to do is clean out my drives beforehand so they will fit and make sure all my partitions have the same drive letter as they do now and get rid of server 2003 and xpmce and keep vista and Xp pro sp1, vista seems stable for me so far. I also learned that Acronis True Image works well too and might be a little less complicated and have a better GUI. I'm looking at reviews of it now.After everything is transfered i will reformat my other drives (4 in all) and put my XP Pro sp1 and vista on my 40 gig and use that as an os drive (master) but i need to make sure when all is said and done all my programs point to the correct Drive/ Folder which might be just too much work.
 
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