I need some harddisc help please!

[casums]

i have a 160gb wd sata hd, and it is set up as a secondary drive. my primary drive is an old 40gb ide drive. when i got the new drive in the mail(RMA from newegg) i tried putting windows on it and then boot from it but windows gave me several error messages. i tried doing a new install of xp again and i got the same error. now i think there is several partial installs of windows on it. when i boot up my comp(old ide hd) i am still able to save files to the new hd. i would like to delete the data off the 160gb hd and transfer all of the data from the 40gb one onto it and be able to boot into windows xp. any help? thanks:)

[peach1971]

1.) Disconnect the 40GB P-ATA drive.
2.) Boot from XP CD
3.) Delete existing partition c: from the 160GB S-ATA drive
4.) Create a new primary NTFS partition c: on it and install XP.

If your BIOS supports HDD boot priority, use it to set the 160GB drive to first.
Otherwise you should be able to select via the boot manager.

Once you have entered the new XP, convert "old" c: (40GB HDD) to a logical partition.

[casums]

wait so i disconnect the 40gb hd and put in the windows xp cd. will it automatically ask me to do the things you said?

[JC316]

Yeah, only hook up the new one and then do a fresh install on the drive, deleting any partitions while you are there.

[casums]

k i did that but now how do i get my info off the old drive onto the new one. and i installed windows again so will it work since i installed it twice

[keakar]

k i did that but now how do i get my info off the old drive onto the new one. and i installed windows again so will it work since i installed it twice

when you say you installed it again do you mean you now have two installs on the new drive "after" you deleted the partition and reformated the drive? or are you just talking about how many times you actually used the disk to install windows?