Not that it would be so hard to do.....outsmart myself, that is :)

Here's the situation:

I am currently running Win2k and my system has a 40G HD divided into several
logical partitions C, D, E, F, G, and H. I have just purchased both a new
100G HD as well as WinXP. For the moment, I have installed the new HD as a
slave drive so that I can still boot my system and use it as always with all
the programs etc on the 40G drive while I tinker with the new drive in the
background.

Therefore, I want to partition the new drive into at least a few partitions
(e.g. now I assume they will be logical drives I, J, K etc) and do a clean
install of WinXP onto the first of these new partitions (drive I in this
example), and eventually re-install my programs etc on the new drive. All of
that is straightforward, I think. Problem is, and you can probably see where
I am going, once WinXP is fully operational on Disk 2, and all my programs
etc are running tip-top under it, I want to change the system over so that I
boot to WinXp (Drive 2) and not Win2k (Drive 1). I assumed I would just
reverse the drives so that the 100Gigger now becomes the master instead of
the slave.

But then how will this boot up? Disk 2, Drive I will now become Disk 1,
Drive??? Won't all my drive references be wrong? How will the system ever
boot or find anything? If I make the new drive the master drive now, how
will I boot up the system under Win2k, since all those drive references will
now be wrong.

Furthermore, if I just prepare and partition Disk 2 now as a series of
logical partitions, how will it ever be bootable without a reformat to add
system files at that time? If I make it bootable now, how do I have 2
bootable disks, and how does my system know what to use? Does it just look
for the first bootable partition or is there something else I have to do in
the preparation of Disk 2?

In short, how can I install the new drive and a new OS but still use my
current drive/settings/programs for now, and then change the whole damn
thing over in one fell swoop. Or can I?

Help please before I really butcher things up :)

Michael

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