Installing a new HDD, need help!

[Velocity]

Okay, I'm kinda new to this so bear with me. I'm putting a 2nd drive into my sisters computer, but it's going to replace the first one. Now I've already got the drive placed on a different cable and set as master. What I want to do is have it be able to transfer the data onto the new drive before formatting the old one.

The instructions said to do this (diff cable + master jumper) so I did. Now when I boot with the WinXP disc it doesn't recognise the drive.

So I'm kind of at square one here. Anyone willing to help me step by step in the process?

 

[Velocity]

Okay I already got it to do what I need it to. But I have a different question now.

Originally I was going to just have 2 partitions on the HDD, one about 2 or 3 gigs for the OS alone, and the rest of it for data, media, programs etc. Now my question is, do I need to make the first partition larger? Because I don't know if all my programs have to be installed of the same partition as the OS or can they still work if I installed them on the second partition?

 

[malcolm]

The programs will work if you install them on a different partition.
My OS partitions are only 1.5gig.
But i think 2 gig will be better tough.
Maybe more, i use win98 so if you use xp it might take more.

 

[Velocity]

So say I installed XP on C:, and all of my programs on D:/Program Files..... etc. XP would still recognize and run them?

 

[malcolm]

When you install programs you can just select the directory so you take D and thats where xp will load them
If youre talking about after you have reformated C and installed xp, well i think you can still run most of the programs and if not you just install over them and you wont lose any files or gamesaves.