Hard Drive and file Question

danjama · 1 Mar 2012 at 00:20

Hi guys. I'll be finishing my build within the next couple of days. I have two hard drives i'll be using. One is a new WD Green 750gb, the other is an old 160gb WD sata 7200rpm. I intend to use the 160gb for the OS and games/programs, and the 750gb for documents and images/video/music. The problem is the 160gb is currently full of files i want to transfer to the 750gb drive. So is the only way to do this to install Windows on the 750gb, copy all of the files that I want from the 160gb to the 750gb, then format the 160gb ready for windows, and then uninstall W7 from the 750gb drive? Will I be able to install windows twice on two different drives within such a short period of time?

Also, hoiw would you recommend i partition my 160gb drive, which i intend to use for the OS and games? And how about the 750gb drive, would that be better split into partitions?

Just wondering whats the best way to go about all of this! I also have an old IDE drive i need to rescue files from

Apologies, this was meant for the general hardware forum!

beejjacobs · 1 Mar 2012 at 00:40

So you do not currently have a system you can put both HDDs in to transfer the files across?

Is the 160GB drive full? If there is space for windows on it, you can install windows without a format, thus keeping all the data which you can then copy across once windows is installed?

I wouldn't recommend you partition either hard drive tbh, it seems more limiting. You will have Windows on a separate HDD, so no need for partitions?

danjama · 1 Mar 2012 at 00:45

beejjacobs said:
So you do not currently have a system you can put both HDDs in to transfer the files across?

Is the 160GB drive full? If there is space for windows on it, you can install windows without a format, thus keeping all the data which you can then copy across once windows is installed?

I wouldn't recommend you partition either hard drive tbh, it seems more limiting. You will have Windows on a separate HDD, so no need for partitions?

Thanks for the quick reply, the 160gb only has about 10gb free, which i dont think is enough for W7 64, is it? Would Linux fit into 10gb and allow me to copy files from the 160gb to the 750gb? Unfortunately no system to boot into and copy files, my main computer died.

The 160gb does have XP on it but dont think that would boot, would it?

beejjacobs · 1 Mar 2012 at 01:33

That wouldn't boot no - it may do but likely to be unstable.

What about a live Linux CD? One that you can run without installing? Assuming it could read the file system that would work ?

danjama · 1 Mar 2012 at 15:39

I wouldn't even need the linux to read the files, just copy them. Hmm. May give that a try.

spain · 1 Mar 2012 at 17:23

Live cd is the way to go, try Puppy (google it), it's light wight and is just around a 50MB download.

danjama · 2 Mar 2012 at 11:27

spain said:
Live cd is the way to go, try Puppy (google it), it's light wight and is just around a 50MB download.

Thanks for this!

danjama · 2 Mar 2012 at 13:04

Bah, i have no way of getting it on to a CD, which seems to be required!

danjama · 2 Mar 2012 at 14:28

Update, managed to get puppy onto a usb drive and boot with it. Now going to connect hard drives which i wish to recover files from and start the process. Hopefully it goes without hiccups.

danjama · 2 Mar 2012 at 14:39

All drives showing up in puppy except the new 750gb drive that i want to copy TO! Is this possibly because the 750 isn't formatted?

I give up, i'll just install windows and do it all within there.

danjama · 2 Mar 2012 at 17:26

Is there any complications to having windows and games on seperate drives?

e.g.

c/ = windows and documents/files
e/ = games/programs

Orcvader · 2 Mar 2012 at 18:33

danjama said:
Is there any complications to having windows and games on seperate drives?

e.g.

c/ = windows and documents/files
e/ = games/programs

Nope. I have something similiar with my SSD/HDD setup.