Install Old Hard Drive w/98 OS on XP OS ?

I am going to install an old hard drive saved from a Windows 98SE environment as a second "slave" hard drive on my Windows XP (Home SP1) system (and I am going to attempt that on my own without taking it to a PC shop...).

I have done some research, and all the info on installing a second hard drive lists doing the FDISK, reformat, etc... BUT, I am wondering if I can intially just use the second hard drive as is, without wiping out the OS or the data, just as though it was a zip drive or whatever...AND, also alternately boot up in Win '98 on the old drive.

Is this at all feasible, and if so, what would be the steps to accomplish this (i.e., what would I skip or do differently in the outlined procedures?)?



edit: no, I do not have any special disk management software like Ghost (but if I need something like that to accomplish this, what would be the best package?)...

 

If the Windows 98SE hard drive came from another computer, it needs to be configued for the new computer. Theoritically, it's not that hard.

But if that hard drive came from another computer, most likely it's OLD and slow. If so, it'll slow down your new hard drive big time.

Windows XP has a Windows 98 EMULATOR. I'd see if that works first for your .exe, rather than mess with dual boot.

I'd just get the DATA off the Windows 98 SE hard drive and put it on the XP hard drive. To do this, just slave the Windows 98 SE hard drive to the computer.

For the novice, the easiest way is to just disconnect the CD ROM drive(s) and attach the Windows 98SE drive to the secondary IDE. This way, you don't have to mess with jumpers. The hard drive jumper diagram is "backwards. "

Then, boot the computer to XP and just copy and paste the files!

If you really do want a dual boot, post back.

 

Thanks Steve, that suggested search lead me to stumble onto a similar (hardware) thread under the XP (software) forum, that sheds some light on boot managers and dual booting, so I will post that here in case anyone else comes along and checks out this thread and does not consider searching the XP software forum for adding a hard drive - here that is:

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20367&highlight=boot+manager

EDIT: whoops, I think that the above link is to search results, so if you are interested, where you should go is to the "Add a hard drive" thread under "Windows XP "....

Oh, there is some "fluff" in the middle of that thread, but some of the more informative info follows that, so don't give up on it...

Now, RayH, thanks for the info, and based on all of the other info that has surfaced on dual booting, I am going to forget about '98 and just use the second/slave drive for data and eventually backup, so drop the dual boot scenario from my perspective...

Thanks again...

 

POSTING BACK, FYI...

Everything worked fine. Installed the old drive as the slave, powered up, and the old hard drive was there, all the data was accessible, and had 15 gig to back up crucial data from the XP OS hard drive. Was not prompted to format or anyting like that, everything was just "automatic ".

BUT, now that I have backed up the data onto the old hard drive, I am thinking about disconnecting it until I need it, in order to save it from the wear and tear from powering down and powering up (heads seating), and to keep the heat down inside the case, etc... Which leads me to another question on how to do that -- can I simply unplug the power cord to the old hard drive, or do I have to also unplug the I/O cable connector?