Two HD's One tower - help please

[Mikeyprs]

hey guys n girls,

I have recently bought a 200gb seagate sata harddrive to go with my current 250gb harddrive and i think ive made a right mess of things.

i installed it fine and everything computer read that is was there etc, only i tried to move my files from one hard to another. and im sure as you can imagine its all gone pete tong.

what i was trying to do is have one hard drive purely for the OS and the programs that i use and the other for all other filetypes, such as documents, music and videos etc.

i have managed to recover some of my data but all of my music (a good 40gbs worth) and 80gbs worth in guitar + drum training/teaching movies etc etc.

is what i was attempting to do possible on windows xp? if so how do i do it safely so i don't screw anything else up

Thanks in advance for all help given!

mikeyprs

[gerbil]

Mike,of course you should be able to, and simply, and I am not sure how you managed to foul it up. :)
The first job is to attempt to recover any file you have lost in the process, and this free pgm will make a fairly decent go of that: gurgle for and dl...
REST2514.EXE - best is if you use another computer to dl it, and dl it to a removable medium such as a floppy or USB flashdrive from which you then run it [this avoids the creation of temp internet files etc which may overwrite your lost data]. Failing that, just dl it to your hdd and run it from there.
Dclick that exe to run it.
The other job simply involves creating a folder set as you go that reflects what you want to do. Explorer almost presents the actual physical drives as "invisible", showing them as merely part of the whole folder structure.
COPY your data over; "Moving" files involves the simultaneous deletion of the parent files... you may not wish to risk that?
As a further step it is possible to move across all the pgm and system temporary, application and data files, and inform the system about where they are so that data is no longer written to your C: drive, but I'm not too sure that you are ready for that...

[Mikeyprs]

Right,
I've spent most of last night installing a fresh copy of windows xp as well a couple of programs and mobo drivers to get me going.
I've also managed to recover some pictures from the main drive and burn them to a disc to sort out at a later date.

what my concern is, how to make it so the 250 gb drive is the storage in spite that it has wins xp os on it already.. would it be nesscessary to have two copies? :S

Thanks for all assistance so far

Mikeyprs

[caperjack]

wow ,last thing you should have done before trying to recover all lost files was reinstall winxp on the drive .
as gerbil said always use copy ,not move when putting files from one drive to the other .
??using the 250 for storage ,i thought you were going to use the 200gig for storage.

what actually happened when you tried/moved the file the first time

[Mikeyprs]

sorry, my mistake for the confusion guys (forum newbie me :D).

so lets clear things up!

The original plan, was to use the new 200gb for storage and keep the 250 gb as the main drive with os and programs.

however, when i tried to "move" all my documents from original to the new it went pete tong in the transfer and not all the files moved over or wouldn't load up properly. As i have recently realised (after reading around the net) that i would still need to format the new drive so that my documents and stuff is still accessible on either drive or however it works.

so anyway, i removed all the files from the 200gb drive and have decided instead to format it with the windows xp disc as the Operating system and program HD and use the bigger 250gb for storage only.

once the 200gb hd was set up with OS, mobo drivers and programs (antivirus, firewall etc). i put the old hard drive back in an attempt to recover what i can using piriform's "recuva" program. i've managed to salvage the pictures so far and as mentioned earlier burn them to a disc.

now, i distinctively remember also having 80 gbs worth of movies and a good 30-40 gbs in music and what i'm hoping to do is recover them files to the HD and then back the whole HD up once i can borrow a friends 1TB external HD and then format it for storage using the windows disc management tool... is this one way of doing it?? or is there a better way of doing so?? baring in mind the 200gb HD now has an OS.

Hope this helps

Mikeyprs

[caperjack]

yeah ,that sounds like a good plan ,good luck .

I backup customers file all the time before a format and reload of windows ,i find it best to copy small amounts at a time to my backup drive , i usually go ,my-document's folder first ,then music and pictures ,and also IE favorites and email if they are not using a webbased email program ,and sometimes saved games folder if required .