upgrade hard drive

[Monkeydad]

Originally Posted by 724Skinsfan

I researched this initially but then my cousin-in-law (if there is such a thing) works for Microsoft and gave me a copy obtained through his employee purchase program. Would you still go with your suggestion?

But then Matty's post got me thinking about getting a new HD (I have a 20GB 7200RPM Seagate) and installing the new XP onto that one and then booting up with that drive. Eventually I'll move all of my files to the new hard drive.

If you have room in the case, you can keep the 20GB for system for program files (including Windows) and use a bigger one as a slave for files. Then you won't have to reinstall and you can just drag and drop files over, plus you'll have an extra 20GB for free.

All you need it this cable:

Newegg.com - Link Depot IDE Round Cable - Retail

and possibly a $2 power cable splitter, but chances are that you have a spare power cable in the case already. You just have to set the jumper on the new drive to "slave".

If you don't have room, you could always remove your floppy if you don't use it. You could always pick up an external laptop floppy (USB or serial port) for next to nothing from eBay in case you ever need it. Windows installs on the CD-ROM drive now anyways and some computers don't even come with floppys anymore, but I always put on in when building. They're like $7 now.