There are lots of different issues here...
Try to get the drives running separately first.
See if the drives are one partition, fully recognized for size, etc...
If they work that way, put them both in properly jumpered.
See if they work together.
Some drives will "hook-up" to each other, and some won't.
This is not as much of a problem as it used to be...
Pick the one with the best installation of Windows (most
programs, "cleanest", etc.) as the boot drive.
If it has a single partition for the entire drive, that is a plus...
(in this case).
I will not go into the limitations of the different BIOS(s),
(515m, 2G, 4G, 8G, 32G, etc),
and any possible limitations of the OS version. (2G per partition?)
The above will "pre-qualify" most of that...
It is easier if neither drive uses a "disk manager".
You generally can't "mix" brands of "disk managers" in the same machine.
But then again, not all mother board BIOS use LBA in EXACTLY
the same way either, so you "could" have LBA translation problems...
A hard drive runs best in the machine it was setup in...
"Often" they are entirely portable to a different machine...
I do it all the time...
IF you get the drives recognized by the BIOS, the OS, and can
see them in full, here is what you will see.
Assuming the BIOS is set to boot off of "C", the first (active) partition
on the first physical spindle on the first IDE channel (set as master)
will boot the computer and appear as "C"
The installation of Windows on that drive will run the system the same
and the programs installed TO IT the same as it was when in the old
computer. EXCEPT any drastic hardware changes may cause all sorts
of problems. Even small "similar" changes will cause problems...
Like slight changes in the hard drive controller chip, that causes Windows
to "misidentify" it and use the previous drivers, or similar things...
The second physical drive spindle first partition will show up as "D"
and the installation of Windows on there will just be seen as "data".
It will not function. Anything (programs) in the Windows registry of the
second drive, and any programs previously installed ONLY in the
Windows on the second drive will not work...
Both drives will still be marked "active" in FDISK. While Windows
does not prefer that, and would correct it in a reinstall, it will not
cause problems "most times".
How the rest of the drive letters "shake out" is dependant on where
the controller chips are and if they run from the BIOS directly or
on software drivers loaded later... (As in EIDE paddle cards...)
The CD-ROM drive letter(s) will move to last, and all the programs
used from it/them will be broken.
If you boot from the 6G drive and it had/has multiple partitions of
its own, any programs installed or "working from" anything other
than "C" will no longer be found when the drive letters change when
adding the "D" from the second drives primary partition. This is
"DOS rules", and can not be avoided in this case...
All your "higher" paths will be trashed...
As you can see, there are many variables to consider and problems
to work out to be even "partly successful" in this undertaking...
Hope this is clear. there is "too much" going on here to give a short
or complete answer. Rick Glazier
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Bennett" <[log in to unmask]>
> I have a 2gig and a 6 gig hard drive that I would lke to put into the same
> computer. They are out of two different computers. They both have primary boot
> partitions with Windows 95 on them. Can they both be put in the same computer
> without having to copy all the information from one to the other, setting to
> slave, reformatting and repartitioning one of the drives.
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