Hi, I have currently have windows XP on my 4 year old pc that has a 20Gb hard drive, this does not work particularly well and over the years has gotton a lot of corrupt info on it.
I have purchased a brand new windows XP sp2 and an additional 120GB hard drive.
I would like to use the original 20gb HD for the windows operating system and other programmes and the 120GB hard drive for any documents and files that i save.
I am quite confident in installing the additional HD and then transferring any existing files I have to it, but then i need to install my new copy of XP sp2 to the original 20gb HD. Please can you advise of the proceedure to remove all information from my original 20GB hard drive and do a "clean" install of Windows XP sp2 to it.
Thanks

I would recommend installing the "new" windows xp sp2 on the new drive, because it's much faster than the old 20gig drive. Use the old 20gig drive for backup and other stuff. An older drive is more likely to fail.

If you are going to install the new windows on the new drive remove the old one during the installation otherwise it will mess up your drive letters.

Thanks for the suggestion about using the new drive.
This makes perfect sense.
If i remove the old HD and fit the new would the installation of XP be straight forward (just a matter of putting in the disc)?
Following the install can I then refit the 20Gig as a slave and transfer any neccesary files/drivers etc from it. Then format it ready to use as a backup or spare HD?

Exactly.

If you have a cd or a dvd burner also burn all the important stuff (my documents, mail, export and save any certificates...) to a cd/dvd.

Hi
I fitted the new HD and it all went well.
I then re fitted the old hard drive (f) in order to transfer my files, documents etc but when i went into my documents it said access was denied, is this something to do with my documents being within admin rights on the old drive and if so, how do I access them or transfer themto the new hard drive?

Hi Ive Sorted it thanks.
I reinstalled the old drive on its own, set my admin to use no passwords and also put all the files I wanted into a new folder within a shared folder. I then refitted both drives and was able to transfer the new folder with all its contents (took ages) into My docs folder on the new HD.
Thanks for your help and support.
YIIPEEEEEEEE !!!