New to Site - Have question about using 2 internal HD's

#1

I hope I’m asking at the right place.

Background

My PC (5 yr old DELL XPS-400) originally came with a 70GB WD drive.  I recently added an internal 1 TB Caviar Black Drive.  My intention was to make the new drive the system (and programs) drive and just to use the original drive for file storage.  I’ve also installed Windows 7 64-bit…and have maxxed RAMM at 4 GB.

** However, the old drive (now called D: ) cannot be formatted…and some of the files on it cannot be deleted.  I also notice that it contains the ‘System’ files, while the new bigger drive (called C: ) contains the boot file, page file, and crash dump files. 

Question:  How do I make the new C: drive function as the system and boot drive…and at the same time, how do I then format the smaller D: drive???

Thanks in advance for any/all help.  :smiley:

#2

JT:

You probably need to use a disk imaging program to copy the original contents of the old drive directly onto the new drive.

Boot with ONLY the new drive installed, to see if it works.

Once you’re confident the new drive is functioning normally,  only THEN install the second drive. 

Once Windows recognizes the new “old” drive, you should DELETE the partitions from it entirely, and repartition the drive however you like it to be, and then format the partitions.

#3

Thanks for your reply.

I used Acronis Home Image 2011 and cloned the old drive onto the new drive.  I then turned off the old drive during the startup…but it wouldn’t boot up.  I kept getting a “missing boot manager” message.   I have it running again but still not configured as I want.

Do I need to do anything with jumpers??   I notice that the old drive keeps maintaining the “system” status … pretty much no matter what I do.  Trying to make the new drive the place where the OS and Programs reside.

would certainly appreciate any help with this…THANKS