installing new c: drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter David
  • Start date Start date
D

David

Here is my problem. Had my Dell crash-followed
technicians instructions and got hung up with XP looking
for admin password. Technician advised only choice was to
format drive C, lose stored data, and start over. I said
crap and kept trying to recover. Finally got XP to load,
but, it partitioned itself. Drive C is now the System
drive with 8mb FAT. Drive D is now the Boot Drive with
19GB NTFS and is recognized as Disk 0. As a result, I
cannot install many prgrams that automatically go to
drive C, nor can I do Windows updates. I decided the
solution was to buy a new 40GB harddrive and install it
as my C drive. I understand I want to change the master
and slave jumpers and then boot using my Xp CDrom, but
where do I go from there? Do I just set it up as a new
installation? How do I make it the system and boot drive
and therefore be able to label it drive C? Do I want it
in NTFS or FAT and what do I do with the other drive?
Please help!!
 
Just let the machine boot from the CD-ROM and follow the
instructions.

As for NTFS vs. FAT, I always go with NTFS. It is more
efficient and secure. But that's just me.

As for your other drive, what do you want to do with it?
If it were me, I'd disconnect it while I did the new
install. That way there is no possibility of losing data.

Once the install is complete, you can re-jumper all the
drives, put them back online and you're up and running.
 
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