Thought I should add that all drives are Windows 2000 FAT
32 formatted, not NTFS (probably obvious though from my
question).
That's not actually relevant information, but I would advise you to use NTFS
- it's a better file system, utilises the disk more efficiently, less
fragmentation, less likelihood of lost clusters. You can convert a FAT32
partition to NTFS (but not the other way round) without loss of data - so
they say. I've never done it.
A "slave" drive isn't connected to any other drive. "Master" and "slave"
refer to the drive's position on the controller cable, so that the controller
can address the correct drive when asked. Just make sure the jumpers are
correctly set, and the drives correctly positioned (slave next to controller
to minimize problems.) Some drives come with "cable select", but AFAIK, both
drives must be capable of this, or it won't work properly. Anyhow, I've never
used it, so I can't tell you what the issues might be.
Master/slave is meaningful to the BIOS, which uses these (electronically
determined) properties to decide which drive to query first to find a
bootable partition (BIOS always looks at HD0 first, which is why boot
managers work.) It's also how BIOS decides which drive to report as HD0, HD1,
etc, which is the information used by W2K (and other OSs) to determine the
"drive letters." From W2K's point of view, in your case the master will be
C:, and the partitions on the slave will be D:, E:, F:, G:.
If you are reinstalling W2K on the original 20GB drive, then you should have
no problems. It will be a "new installation", and W2K will look for and deal
with all existing HDDs in your system. It's best if you use a custom install,
so you can make sure W2K does the right thing with the partitions on the
120GB drive. You may have to reinstall applications that run from the
partitions on that drive, however.
OTOH, if that original drive still has W2K on it, you will have problems,
since _that_ installation of W2K doesn't "know" about the 120GB drive. You
will in effect be "upgrading to new hardware", and that's a hassle. PITA to
be more precise. The following post courtesy Bruce Chambers refers to
articles that may be relevant. Good luck -- and if you don't want to rely on
luck, ask a techie friend for advice, or buy a book.
.
...................................................................
From: "Bruce Chambers" <
[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.win2000.hardware
Subject: Re: New Computer, but W2K refuses to run
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 18:43:17 -0600
Greetings --
Normally, unless the new motherboard is virtually identical to the old one
(same chipset, IDE controllers, etc), you'll most likely need to perform a
repair (a.k.a. in-place upgrade) installation, at the very least (and don't
forget to reinstall any service packs and subsequent hot fixes):
How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q292175
What an In-Place Win2K Upgrade Changes and What It Doesn't
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q306952
If that fails:
How to Move a Windows 2000 Installation to Different
Hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q249694&ID=KB;EN-US;Q2
49694
Bruce Chambers
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