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How to install an additional hard drive using Windows XP Disk Management

How to tell if the drive is SATA or IDE click here.

1. Install Secondary drive.
2. Boot into Windows XP.
3. Open Computer Management and select Disk Management.
4. Initialize the drive. (manually if wizard doesn't run) (also sometimes it is automatically done f0r you)
5. Partition the drive.
6. Assign the drive letter.
7. Format the drive.

 

Opening Disk Management

1. Go to control panel (This link will open in a different window)
2. Double-click on Administrative Tools
3. Double-click on Computer Management
4. Click on Disk Management

When the drive is first seen by Disk management it will not be seen in Windows Explorer. For the drive to be seen in Windows Explorer the drive will need to be configured through disk management. XP will normally see the unpartitioned drive when you open disk management and start the wizard for you

Notice the Unallocated Drive

At this point XP will normally launch a wizard to walk you through setting up the drive, but it may be necessary to set it up manually.

The Partition/Conversion Wizard Method

1. Select the drive to partition (The new drive).
2. Select the drive to Convert (Not needed for new drives).
3. A summary screen will tell what the wizard will do if you press finish. Confirm that the correct drive is selected.
4. Once you press finish the drive will be initialized and you will be taken to the partition Wizard.

 

Manually Initialize

1. Right click the new drive to initialize it.  This prepares the drive to be used with Windows.
2. Once you choose initialize, another window will come up asking you to confirm which drive to initialize. Once a drive is initialized the data on the drive will be erased.
3. Choose the correct drive. Windows will usually only display uninitialized drives, but if you have a dual boot system, drives from other operating systems will show up in the list.
4. Once you choose OK the drive will be initialized for use with Windows XP (It still will not be seen by Windows Explorer)

 

Partition the drive

Once a drive is initialized for use with XP, a partition option becomes available. This option is not available for drives that do not have free space or for drives that have not been initialized.

Windows XP supports FAT 16 partitions limited to 4 GB (Limited to 2 GB in DOS based operating systems like Windows 9X/Me), FAT 32 partitions which can be created up to 32 GB (They can be larger if they were made with Windows 98/Me), and NTFS partitions.

 

Partition Wizard

1. Summary Screen
2. Partition type  Primary - This is the normal selection for drives with less than 4 partitions.  Extended - This is used if the drive is split in to 4 or more partitions.
3. Specify Partition size in Megabytes - Set the size of the partition (The full drive capacity is the default). If the full partition size is not used, right click on the remaining free space once the wizard has completed to partition that space. Repeat the partition wizard until the drive is how you want it.
4. Assign the drive letter - This allows you to select the drive letter for this partition. If the partition is NTFS, you can mount the drive as a subfolder of an existing NTFS partition. If you want the drive to be d: and it is taken by the CD, you must first move the CD drive letter and restart the partition wizard.  Click here for more information on moving drive letters.
5. Format Partition - If you choose not to format then you can format later by right clicking on the drive and choosing format. You can choose to format with a file type and allocation unit size. NTFS is the default format type in Windows XP, but FAT32 is popular for users that dual boot between XP and 9X. There is a limit that XP cannot create a partition larger than 32 GB using FAT32. However you can use Windows 98/Me to create a larger partition and use it under Windows XP. Allocation units are usually left at the default unless you know specifically what you want to do with the system. If you are doing video and audio, they tend to use large allocation units because it improves performance with large files, but if you have a lot of small files then those files take up more space on the hard drive. For example, if you set the allocation unit size to 64k, any file, even a 1k file, will use 64k of drive space. Quick format will quickly format the drive, but it skips several verification processes.

Finished - Once the drive has been initialized, partitioned, and formatted it will display as a healthy drive with the size and type of partition below the volume name and drive letter.