installing xp on e and booting from e

[rosscoe3]

my problem is that i have 3 hard drives E: is the biggest and has heaps of space on it - c: is a pain in the neck and keeps filling up all the time, can i install xp on e: then boot from or is there another answer. if it means fdisking e: i dont mind starting from scratch as most things are recoverable and there is nothing like a clean sheet. i had a go at xxcopy but it froze. any help would be much appreciated.

[hmar]

With some exceptions, you can boot XP from any drive letter. Is e: an external drive? Your computer may or may not boot to external drives. If you want to leave c intact, you can install xp to e and simply choose it from the boot menu every time you boot, or you can wipe all three and let e become the new c. That might be easiest.

[abubucker0]

my problem is that i have 3 hard drives E: is the biggest and has heaps of space on it - c: is a pain in the neck and keeps filling up all the time, can i install xp on e: then boot from or is there another answer. if it means fdisking e: i dont mind starting from scratch as most things are recoverable and there is nothing like a clean sheet. i had a go at xxcopy but it froze. any help would be much appreciated.

i think  most probably u r refering to the local disk drives(C,D,E)...
if my guess is correct  than u can install on any of the drives.if you want to install it on E drive than simply go ahead and install   

[rosscoe3]

this is one of those things which gets u dreaming - in the middle of last night i realised that because e: is so big and empty all i had to do was add another parititon instead of destroying the data with xxcopy. 

i could of have created a large partition on e: and loaded xp onto it i suppose.

However before i do that if anyone knows how to have emails stored to a different drive (other than c:) it may save me a lot of trouble also - i can't find anyhing in outlook or outlook express that allows you do do that?  I get rather large emails and it is one of the reasons C: keeps filling up.

If that is achievable i may only have to point MYDOCUMENTS folder to E: which will also save me a lot of room on C: and solve all my problems

all help appreciated  regards ross

[rosscoe3]

i just had another thought - will moving mydocuments to e:  solve my problems with email as welll.   ?  where do all those buggers go?

[rosscoe3]

back again!         i found out where all those little creatures go -  they are stored in - C:\Documents and Settings\ross hardy\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{D4D3054C-58B3-41FB-B3B8-1CAFC09A8D82}\Microsoft    --  can i have documents and settings on transferred to e: - i know i can just copy across but can i get the system to point there all the time? 

[quaxo]

Ok, list out all of your drives and total size of each drive (I mean the actually drive, NOT the partitions), and the connection of those drives (IDE, SATA, USB, etc.)

Then list the partitions that are on each drive. From there, we can decide what's the best way to partition your drives, where to install Windows, where to install programs, etc.

You can alter where most programs store their files, where My Documents is located, etc. but we'll get to that after we see the layout of your current drives and partitions.

[rosscoe3]

Operating System   System Model
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600)   Enclosure Type: Desktop
Processor a   Main Circuit Board b
3.00 gigahertz Intel Pentium D
16 kilobyte primary memory cache
2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache   Board: Micro-Star MS-7255 1.2
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. V1.1 12/11/2006
Drives   Memory Modules c,d
173.13 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
150.02 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

LITE-ON DVDRW SHM-165P6S [CD-ROM drive]
SONY DVD RW AW-G170A [CD-ROM drive]

Canon MP Memory Card USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 2
SAMSUNG HD160JJ SCSI Disk Device (160.04 GB) -- drive 1
SAMSUNG SV2011H [Hard drive] (20.05 GB) -- drive 0   480 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM0' has 512 MB
Slot 'DIMM1' is Empty
  Local Drive Volumes
     
c: (NTFS on drive 0) 8.39 GB 816 MB free
d: (NTFS on drive 0) 4.71 GB 621 MB free
e: (NTFS on drive 1) 160.03 GB 148.59 GB free
 
no other external drives in use

[quaxo]

Here's what I would do with that.

Make a backup directory on E:, copy everything from C: and D: that you want to keep to E:. Since C: and D: are partitions on the 20GB, after you back up your files from them, delete the partitions and make one large 20GB partition. Install Windows here.

At this point you should have two drives, C: (20GB) and E: (160GB). Either:

1) resize the E: partition to ~80GB and make a second 80GB partition on it
or
2) delete the current partition and create 2 new 80GB partitions.

(Note: size the partitions as you wish, like 100GB/60GB, 80GB/80GB... up to you)
In either case, back up whatever you need from E: before partitioning.

Use C: as your system drive with Windows and essential software like Firefox, Office, etc.
Use the new D: to install other programs and games.
Use the new E: for storage, media files, etc.

We'll talk about adjusting your program settings after you've got the drives set up again, so that you can tell your programs where to store their files and such.

[rosscoe3]

i now have a problem with ie7-  i cant open additional sites or tabs the only way i can access sitrs is to place the site name in the internet options address bar then start ie7 - i tried to download an update from microsoft but it wont let me - i reloaded xp which does not seem to fix it either?  any help appreciated.  regards ross

[rosscoe3]

it is the same for links i cannot open ie7 from links - i have to paste the link into te address bar in internet options to load the page - this is confusing