installing a new harddrive should be easy if u know what u are doing, IF u know how jumper settings operate u should be cool,

why do u want to go into bios, if u dont know what u r doing there u might screw up ur machine.

if u already have a hardrive with windows on it u wont have to re install xp

Since you are writing this post I am assuming you are on the machine that has an os installed and is windows.

If you are looking to add a drive tot his system then you need ot power down.

Look at the first drive. Ensure that it is set to MASTER

Hook up second driver ensure that the jumper is set to SLAVE

Connect these to drives by chaining them together using your IDE Cable

Assuming these are IDE Drives...



If these are SATA Drives then its really simply.. plug one in on drive0 plug the other on drive1 presto second drive installed..

In either case once you get into windows right click my computer

Manage

Storage

DIsk Management

Locate the new drive set your partition NTFS and sue maxmimum size.

Format.

Done.

Unless the original hard drive is malfunctioning, you can add the new drive as a secondary one as others have said. There is no need to replace the original if it still works.

The legend has spoken(Cat) so now i think your problem should be solved

i have a similar question as this one,i want to sell my tower unit but the hard drive has a lot of personal info on it,i have cleaned it a s much as poss but am still not happy with the security aspect can i install a new harddrive and load windows xp professional on it from the old one and then remove the original drive?l