temporarily installing a slave drive containing an OS - OK?

[deutsch_joe]

So, it looks like I'll be getting a new motherboard after my first motherboard went bad in my computer. And before I do this, I want to back up the 50GB or so of things I've downloaded as I'm not sure if I'll lose everything when I'm forced to reinstall Windows XP.

What I want to do is take the hard drive out of my computer that has what I want to back up (as well as Windows XP on it) and change the jumper settings to slave. Then change the boot order to have the computer look at it very last while installing it in my dad's computer.

And my question is this - Installing it this way will keep my dad's computer from booting from my copy of Windows XP, while allowing me to access and back up my files, won't it?

I'm not sure what would happen booting from a different version of XP that's in a machine it wasn't installed on, but my intuition tells me that it would probably be trouble. (I know Microsoft tries to put anti-piracy implimentations into their products.)

Anyway, thanks in advance to anybody that can answer my question!

[DMR]

What I want to do is take the hard drive out of my computer that has what I want to back up (as well as Windows XP on it) and change the jumper settings to slave. Then change the boot order to have the computer look at it very last while installing it in my dad's computer. And my question is this - Installing it this way will keep my dad's computer from booting from my copy of Windows XP, while allowing me to access and back up my files, won't it?

That's exactly right. I'm not sure what would happen booting from a different version of XP that's in a machine it wasn't installed on, but my intuition tells me that it would probably be trouble...Yes, that would be what is known as a Bad Thing. :mrgreen:

[deutsch_joe]

Thanks for confirming! :mrgreen:

I installed it like that and everything's working fine. It didn't show up in BIOS, but it did when I went into the boot order menu. (To make sure my dad's computer didn't boot off of my hard drive.)

It showed up fine in Windows and I've been backing my files up all day.

One more question:

I've never removed a hard drive before, only just installed them.

Since it's a slave and not looked to for bootup instructions, is the only thing to it just taking it out?

Thanks!

[DMR]

Yup- just remove it; that's all you need to do.