Creating a seperate drive

bushmins · 1 May 2008 at 06:56

Im always very very careful on what i download and what sites i go on.
I do like to reinstall xp every now and again but dont like having to install all my games again.

How can i set up my system with two seperate hardrives, one for xp and all my normal stuff like word virus checkers, internet explorer etc... and one just for games.

Can i just format a new hardrive, plug it in then install all my games onto it? or is there more to it than that.

helmutcheese · 1 May 2008 at 13:28

Basically what you said.

bushmins · 2 May 2008 at 02:39

How would i go about formatting the new harddrive? I dont remember an option in bios to do this. Or can i do it via windows?

rpstewart · 2 May 2008 at 09:22

Disk Managment tool in Windows - right click on My Computer and pick Manage.

stealthgeek · 2 May 2008 at 09:35

you'll still need to reinstall your games if you format and reinstall Windows (registry still needs to be updated with the games info), just you wont lose your saved games

Theguy · 2 May 2008 at 10:21

Well thats not always the case, i would say a 1/2 of games wont need reinstalling, most are happy without the reg files. your always going to get some tho which kick up a fuss.

and also, now as more and more games are saving into the documents folder, you would lose your saves if you didnt back them up.

technically more safer then just 1 larger drive, allows abit more wiggle room + more to importantly, allows better organisation.

Ethics · 2 May 2008 at 10:38

You could take a dump of the registry or export particular game keys (could take a while).

Probably just quicker to reinstall them (why are you not imaging the drive if you re-install a lot?, next time once windows is installed and patched create an image of it, then next time you can load that image, and install latest drivers as you wish).

The documents folder is an important point though, a lot of people (to my dismay) send the saves etc. to various directories, making it a pain to keep track of. Since you format a lot you could make a batch file that copies from various places for various games, would make the process quicker.

Basically i don't think a different drive is going to improve your situation much. Now if you had a drive full of images of said games, and your respective saves you could just quickly mount each image when installing, a lot easier than popping a bloody disk in every few minutes.