How to switch boot drive on XP

[dwh]

Hello,

A friend of mine has XP, an OS I'm not too familiar with... His machine is a desktop Sony Vaio (I hate Sony)...and the hard drive almost died a couple times. Actually it did die..but somehow came back to life... It makes those uncomfortable noises reminiscent of a drive in trouble.

I noticed he has a second hard drive mostly unused. So I had him switch his whole my documents folder data onto drive D. And whatever else was feasible to move. But I'd love to move the booting over to Drive D. What is the best way to do this? Would it require formatting Drive D? Or can the system files be copied over and the BIOS just "setup" to boot on Drive D. Thanks for any help.

[Yargwel]

Welcome to MG.

The way I would do it would be to copy the data you put onto D onto a CD or DVD.

Remove old C drive and replace with what is currently the D Drive remembering to set the drive as Master.

Install XP onto this drive using the installation CD.

Re-install any programs that you have. Copy the files saved onto that CD or DVD back to the correct folders on the new drive.

You could then set the old C drive up as a slave drive and still use it (delete the windows files from it if you wish) until it fails. But certainly don't use it for anything you need to keep.

[dwh]

Thanks. He said it came preinstalled w/ XP and he doesn't see any install disks. Is there a way to create an install disk?

[Yargwel]

Originally Posted by dwh

Thanks. He said it came preinstalled w/ XP and he doesn't see any install disks. Is there a way to create an install disk?

Even when an OS is preinstalled you usually get a restore disk becuase otherwise the first time the OS or HD throws its legs in the air you are stuffed! The OS might be stored on the harddrive itself as a bunch of cab files possibly in a hidden folder. If that is the case you would need to burn the lot to a CD before the HD fails.

[dwh]

Originally Posted by Yargwel

Even when an OS is preinstalled you usually get a restore disk becuase otherwise the first time the OS or HD throws its legs in the air you are stuffed! The OS might be stored on the harddrive itself as a bunch of cab files possibly in a hidden folder. If that is the case you would need to burn the lot to a CD before the HD fails.

Thanks. So would windows file search find it? What keyword should I have him search for? "OS"? "XP"?

[Yargwel]

Originally Posted by dwh

Thanks. So would windows file search find it? What keyword should I have him search for? "OS"? "XP"?

First get him to reveal hidden files: My Computer>Tools>View>show hidden files and folders.

Then search on *.cab. There may be a folder with a whole bunch of them plus a few other files such as msi files and a setup file as well. If you find it you'll need to copy all the files not just the cab files.