Windows XP and 2 Hdd in 1 system question

[Kookstick]

I currently have win xp pro on my p4 system with a 20 gig seagate drive as C. I want to get a new 80 gb special edition western digital drives and have that as my main C drive and use the seagate as a backup/mp3 drive. My first question is- can I install a new drive on the same system with win xp and use my same user license. I was also wondering how I can go about making the new drive C and the older drive F or something. I will be removing all the programs before hand so that I can install them on the new drive but I wanted to leave my documents and mp3 on the old drive and then just drag them to the new drive. Do you guys see any problems with what I want to do? When I install win xp on the new drive and it wants me to activate it will there be a problem? Thanks

[Johnny Fist]

Going through all that trouble seems redundant to me when you can simply plug in the new drive as a slave and keep working. Chances are you'll need more room for your data as opposed to your OS and programs anyway.

There is an option for renaming drives in administrative tools>drive management. At least there is in pro...I have no idea about home.

If you decide to still use the new drive as your master drive anyway, I'd simply unplug the old one, install the new one, format, install xp, shut down, plug the old drive in as the slave, then boot. It'll automatically rename the old drive to something else like D or H or something.

[Kookstick]

Do you need to have a os installed on both drives? I want to use the 80gb 8mb buffer drive for my games and programs since it's a faster drive and the 20 gb for data backup and mp3's. I guess what your saying is install the new one as master, unplug the old one, install the os on new and then plug the old drive in after and it will detect the drive. I have never had 2 harddrives installed on 1 machine before so I wasn't sure if you had to install the os on 1 drive and it will just detect the 2nd automatically or install the os on both. thx

[Direct1]

No, you do not need an OS on 2nd hdd.

I guess what your saying is install the new one as master, unplug the old one, install the os on new and then plug the old drive in after and it will detect the drive.
Yes, and when you're done installing on the new drive, you can copy saved files, Favorites, e-mail's and setting, etc... to the new drive. Good look! :t

[Johnny Fist]

You're actually making this more complicated than it needs to be.