How to use a xp sata harddrive as added storage in a vista

[RandymanCSA]

I had a emachine xp that died and i would like to use the old hard drive as extra memory storage. both are sata drives and i have 1 empty sata plug on my motherboard and I think i have the power leads for 2nd hard drive. How would iI format the xp drive to work and what else would i have to do?

[jsmartin22]

By Power lead, I presume you just mean "SATA Cable" or "Power Connector." I will assume your machine is not setup to support RAID, and if that is the case, then;
1. Install the drive, connecting both the SATA Cable and the Power Cable.
2. Turn on computer and drive should be immediately recognized.
3. Once computer boots:
-From the Start menu, click Run
-In the Open box, type diskmgmt.msc, and then click OK.
4. Disk management utility should be visible.
5. Right click on your new drive, which should show.
6. Format it with either the FAT or NTFS formats, depending on what the other
disks are using.

Here is a link to the MS Disk Management Utility.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../bb457110.aspx

Hope this helps.

Scott

[jsmartin22]

I realized later that you probably have the XP system on your old drive, and you are porting this to a new computer, right? If so, the information in my original post is correct, BUT there is one additional step that I think will be necessary: you will need to remove the MBR from the old drive. If you don't remove the MBR, when this "old" disk is installed on the new computer, XP and VISTA will both exist and conflict in this "Dual boot configuration." I believe this is true even if you format the disk with XP. Search the web for "remove MBR", but my approach would be to:
1. Be sure you are ready to erase the drive.
2. Connect the drive with XP to a computer.
3. Boot with the manufactur's drive utility (all manufactur's have this; for Seagate it is "SeaTools for DOS").
4. There should be a utility that will allow you to "write all 0's to the drive" or perhaps "Write 0's to the first sector only". First sector always contains the MBR. Either should work.
5. Once you've erase the MBR, you can proceed as outlined in my original post.

[MaDef]

The manufacterers utilities aren't really neccessary, In disk management right click the xp drive, delete the logical drives. After that right click the drive again and delete the partition. once thats done the drive will show as unallocated space, right click the drive again and set it as an extended partition, set the logical drives and format.

[jsmartin22]

Originally Posted by MaDef

The manufacterers utilities aren't really neccessary, In disk management right click the xp drive, delete the logical drives. After that right click the drive again and delete the partition. once thats done the drive will show as unallocated space, right click the drive again and set it as an extended partition, set the logical drives and format.

Yeah, I think you are right and certainly your suggestion is easier. I am struggling to understand exactly what an extended partition is.

[MaDef]

Hows this for an explanation?

Primary

A primary partition contains one file system. In MS-DOS and earlier versions of Microsoft Windows systems, the first partition (C must be a primary partition. Some operating systems are not limited in this way; however, this can depend on other factors, such as a PC's BIOS (see Boot sequence on standard PC for more information).

The "partition type" code for a primary partition can either correspond to a file system contained within (e.g. 0x07 means either an NTFS or an OS/2 HPFS file system) or indicate the partition has a special use (e.g. code 0xBC may mean an Acronis Secure Zone and code 0x82 usually indicates a Linux swap partition). The FAT16 and FAT32 file systems have made use of quite a number of partition type codes over time due to the limits of various DOS and Windows OS versions. Though a Linux operating system may recognize a number of different file systems (ext2, ext3, reiserfs, etc.), they have all consistently used the same partition type code: 0x83 (Linux native).

Extended

An extended partition is a primary partition which contains secondary partition(s). A hard disk may contain only one extended partition; which can then be sub-divided into logical drives, each of which is (under DOS and Windows) assigned additional drive letters.

For example, under either DOS or Windows, a hard disk with one primary partition and one extended partition, the latter containing two logical drives, would typically be assigned the three drive letters: C: for the primary partition, and D: and E: for the two logical drives.

[jsmartin22]

Got it! Thx MaDef!