So, per my example, if i want the existing drive to be the
master and the other to be the slave, there is a specific
cable that i need to do this? I cannot use the cable that
is currently attached to the second drive in the machine I
am eliminating? Obviously, this drive is currently a
master since it is the only one in this machine. And since
that is the case, will it cause an error since they are
both formatted as a "C" drive? I appreciate your help, and
apologize for the questions, i just want to be sure before
i attempt this so no data/progams are lost.
First, I recommend _strongly_ that you borrow or buy a book on Upgrading and
Repairing PCs -- the one with that title written by Scott Mueller is the
standard, and is excellent, and if you plan to do more messing around with
hardware, I recommend it highly. I also recommend that you take an extension
or evening course as may be offered by a local high school or college in how
to build/upgrade/repair your PC. It will be time and money well spent.
Second a quick lesson on what you are trying to do:
Your PC has two controllers, which control hard drives, CD-ROMs, CD-RW, etc.
Each controller can control two drives. A ribbon cable connects the
controller to the drive(s). The ribbon cable has two connectors, one for each
drive. Make sure that the connector is oriented properly -- the edge marked
with a a red stripe _must_ go onto the #1 pin on the drive. The power plug,
fortunately, is oriented so it can only be plugged in one way.
If you put two drives on one controller, you _must_ set jumpers on each
drive, one to Master, one to Slave (there is also Cable Select, but I advise
you to avoid that). Master is the default, so you probably don't need to
touch the existing drive, but make sure it's not set to Cable Select. The
Master (existing drive) will be on the connector at the end of the cable.
Plug the Slave (other drive) on the one between the end and the controller.
This sequence is important!
I would _not_ recommend putting the second drive onto the secondary
controller, BTW -- it will be a Master, and there could be a conflict during
boot - it's not supposed to happen that way, but with PCs and W2K nothing is
guaranteed.
Unless you have changed the "boot sequence" in BIOS, BIOS selects Drive 0 on
Controller 0 to boot from -- that's the Master HD on the Primary HD
controller. The boot partition on this drive will be called C:.
In your case, I presume that each drive has been partitioned into one volume,
the boot volume. When you install the second drive, BIOS will see it as Drive
1 on Controller 0. It will not attempt to boot from this drive unless you
change the boot sequence. Windows will see this second drive as D:, _not_ C:.
(Footnote) The second drive must be jumpered as Slave. Then your machine
should boot properly.
However, you now have two drives with W2K on them, The W2K on C: is the one
you want to keep, since it's the one you boot. The W2K (and most associated
applications) on D: is wasting space, so you should get rid of it. But you
say you don't want to lose anything, so you have to protect your data. The
following process will do that:
a) Create a folder on C; for backing up your data from D:
b) Select the data on D: that you want to save.
c) Move the data from D: to the backup folder.
d) Double check to make sure you have the data you want to save in the
back-up folder.
e) Format D:.
f) Create whatever folders you want on D:, and move the data to them. I would
move _all_ data from C: to D:. If (more likely when, unfortunately) W2K acts
up, and a repair or reinstall is necessary, you can do whatever you want on
C: without affecting D:
BTW, "data" includes *,zip or self-extracting installation files of
applications that you may have installed on D: and not on C:.
Footnote: A drive is "partitioned" into one or more "partitions", each of
which holds one or more "volumes", depending on what kind of partition it is.
The volumes are given "drive letters", which is a confusing misnomer
inherited from DOS, but that's the way it is. In addition, CD-ROMs etc, are
also given "drive letters." One way of explaining what happens is this: W2K
makes a list of volumes and drives according to a set of rules, calls the
first volume C:, the next one D;, and so on. Since the rules for assigning
drive letters can result in confusion, W2K allows you to reassign drive
letters through Disk Management.
BTW, you do not "format a drive as C:". Formatting means installing a file
system; you don't need to know the details of what formatting does in order
to do it safely, but if you want, I'll send you an explanation.
HTH.
