Change boot device from one HDD to another

[moshel]

Currently I have a 250gb HDD. M going to buy a new 500gb harddisk.

The problem is, that the winxp on my current 250gb hdd has gone very slow and is like semi corrupt, due to the N number of virus/trojan attacks in the past.

anyway the point is, once i get the new HDD, I plan to install Win 7 and want to use that one as the primary boot device, without formatting the current hdd.

please tell me how can i go about doing this.

the mobo i have is Asus p5q

Thanks,
Moshel

 

[nRiTeCh]

yes you can but your current hdd holds existing OS so better disconnect it when installing OS in new hdd

 

[sensatul]

U can switch ur new HDD to the primary one in BIOS options................Evry mobo have this feature...........just browse thru ur BIOS settings..........u may find it HDD sequence or HDD Priority or something similar to this.............In my mobo it is named as HDD sequence

or there is an other option just put ur new HDD in Master sata port and the old one into the salve one.....

But doin it thru BIOS would be a better option

 

[sabby]

U can switch ur new HDD to the primary one in BIOS options................Evry mobo have this feature...........just browse thru ur BIOS settings..........u may find it HDD sequence or HDD Priority or something similar to this.............In my mobo it is named as HDD sequence

or there is an other option just put ur new HDD in Master sata port and the old one into the salve one.....

But doin it thru BIOS would be a better option

NOTE MY EXPERIENCE

I knew this and tried too. I had (have) Xp + Win 7 + openSuse 11.1 in my old 80GB. Yesterday tried to load Xp/Win 7 in the new 500GB HDD. I already selected the new HDD as the boot drive. But every time after the first restart, an error occured - "Error loading Operating System". I tried in every possible way but ended up wasting a few hours and few tries to install XP and Win 7. Today, I just disconnected the old HDD and started again from the scratch. Installed win 7 + suse 11.2 smoothly. Then I connected the old HDD i.e. two HDD simultaneously. Now it works the right way. When I choose the old/new HDD as boot drive from BIOS, the corresponding boot menu / grub show up. And of course I can see/work with the other HDD from any OS.

So my advise would be Just disconnect the old HDD, install the OS(s) and then reconnect that. Everything will be fine.

 

[moshel]

thx for the help guys.

today i got some experience on this issue. I connected the new HDD and old hdd just randomly where it was easy for my hand to reach the sockets and when i booted up, it took up the 500gb one as primary and gave me error. so i went into the bios and fiddled around and finally got this thing to work

thx to the heads up from sabby, i will disconnect my old hdd before installing win7

btw. my mobo Asus p5q has 8 sata ports 6 red, 1 orange and 1 white, is there any difference between them. I do not have the manual as i got this mobo as a replacement for my dead Asus P5N32 e Sli

 

[sabby]

Shouldn't be any problem as long as only one HDD is connected. Will inform you in the morning after seeing the mobo manual, feeling dodgy now.

EDIT:

What I read from the Asus website, p5q doesn't have any discrimination between SATA ports. That means all SATA ports should be equal. Confirm with others.

 

[anfjavid]

thx for the help guys.

today i got some experience on this issue. I connected the new HDD and old hdd just randomly where it was easy for my hand to reach the sockets and when i booted up, it took up the 500gb one as primary and gave me error. so i went into the bios and fiddled around and finally got this thing to work

thx to the heads up from sabby, i will disconnect my old hdd before installing win7

btw. my mobo Asus p5q has 8 sata ports 6 red, 1 orange and 1 white, is there any difference between them. I do not have the manual as i got this mobo as a replacement for my dead Asus P5N32 e Sli

I think the orange and white ones must be AHCI and RAID port...