How to switch drives?

Yes, but you'll also need to reinstall Windows on the present slave drive in order to use it to boot from.

What do you mean by "reinstall"? I already copied the contents of the whole present primary drive to the slave.

That won't work unless you use some type of cloning utility - either the free one from your drive manufacturer, or Symantec Ghost, Acronis TrueImage, etc.

If you simply copied files, the second drive will not be bootable.

That will do fine, as long as you do not boot the system with the new master in the slave position. If you do that, Windows will write a signature to the second disc that will render it unbootable.

Clone, power off, disconnect and swap drives.

I used Western Digitals software that came with the new drive.I thinks its called Wester Digital Lifeguard Tools.

Let me explain myself again:I bought a new Western Digital 160 GB drive.I have copied (using they software) the whole contents of the present drive.Initialised and formated and the new drive received the E:\ drive letter.At the moment,when I boot up its still is the old drive.I would like to make the new drive the primary boot up drive and if the copying was succesfull and no data was lost during the copying I would permanently keep the new drive as my boot up drive.I could even remove the old drive.So,what do I do now?Open the PC and switch the drives aruond,make the present master drive the slave and the present slave ( the new drive ) the master?Is that what I have to do ?

Thanks a lot....

I am sorry, but I still dont get it.I have never booted the slave drive yet.Thats all I try to find out how to do that.I could not have boot the the new drive that is still in the slave spot on the gray end of the drive cable.I have not booted that one.I would not know how even.After I cloned the old drive I booted up about ten times,but it was always from the old drive.My Computer recognizes it as a Local Drive E:\ next to Local Drive C:\ I can look in there all the files seams to be there from the cloning of the Drive C:\.Still every time I boot up its from the Drive C:\.Because ( I assume ) the drives are still connected like the C:\ drive in the master end of the cable and the new E:\ drive on the slave ( geay ) end of the cable.If I am right in this ,what do I do next?How do I get to use the Drive E:\ ?

Pard my ignorance,but I seek help because I have very limited knowledge of PCs.

If you have cloned the original drive, and then booted the clone drive in the same system, on slave, you'll need to re-clone the drive. Once you do that, Windows signs the drive as a slave, and you cannot use it as your primary drive.

Re do the cloning process, and SHUT DOWN the system. Swap the drives, and restart. You will achieve your swap without issue, AS LONG AS you have XP, SP1 or SP2 loaded, with 48-bit drive support enabled.

This is as clear as I can make it:

To successfully clone a drive with an NT-based operating system (NT/2000/XP), you must:

1. Install the destination drive in the system.
2. Boot the floppy or CD containing the cloning program.
3. Clone the drive.
4. Shut down the system.
5. Open the case. Disconnect the slave and move it to the master position. You can either leave the original master disconnected, or place it into the slave position.
6. Power on the system and boot from the destination drive.

What you CANNOT do:

After step 4, DO NOT boot the system with the desination drive in the slave position. It sounds as though you have done that already. When you do that, Windows marks the drive as a slave and you WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BOOT FROM IT even if you move the drive to a master position on the cable.

If this is what you've done, and you move the slave to the master position, one of two things will happen:

Windows will refuse to boot at all ("insert bootable media") or
Windows will ignore that disc and boot from the original drive, EVEN IF IT IS IN THE SLAVE POSITION.

If you have started up the system with the desination drive in the slave position, you will need to REPEAT THE CLONING PROCESS and stop BEFORE you boot the system with the drive as slave.

Thanks,for the effort of explaining it to me.Yes,obviously I have started the system a few times this way.I was not aware that after cloning I immedietly had to shot down and switch drives.So,my options now are ,either to clone over the existing one,or leave it alone and use DriveE:\ as a storage drive?But how do I get into it and perhaps transfer a few programs from the C:\drive but on second thought that wont do much good how will I get to them if I decide to use them sometime in the future?Or is it that I cant boot from it only,but I can get into once I am booted up?Forgive me but this is getting too complicated for me.I know you are trying to help only?

Thanks a million.....

When I just cloned the drive using WD Data Lifeguard it took less than 1 hr. to get it done.The new cloning just goes over the first cloning and then when its done I just shot down and switch the drives around and boot up again and have the new drive the boot up drive.What drive letter do you think it will have?I think I am getting the fell of this ,thanks to you.

I think your best bet, since the original drive is still running fine, is to re-do the cloning process. It takes a while using Data Lifeguard, but can be completed overnight.

There's no way to stop programs from installing some components to the root (boot) drive, but you can uninstall them and reinstall the majority of them to the other drive.

Boot the new drive alone in the system - it will take C: Once it has successfully booted once, you can hook up the other drive as a slave.

I think I got it.I have recopied and shut down and switched drive cable connection and the PC booted up from the new ly designated drive and got the C:\ drive letter.I hope tere was no data lost or corrupted files during the copying.I will use it for a few days and if all is well,I dont even need the old drive in there.I thank you for all your help,I would not have been able to do this whitout it.

One more question if you dont mind :if I just disconnect the old drive or remove it from the PC,should something happen to the new drive ( foulty product stb.) the old drive would still be usable?There was no data removed from it during the transfer?

Thanks again for all your help....