Hello, I am buying a second hard drive that is 500gb. The one I already have is 160 gb. This is my plan and I have a few questions about it. I want to run windows on the 160 gb hard drive, along with all the drivers for the hardware. But I would like to put all my music, pictures,videos, GAMES (over 100gb), and program files on the new 500gb hard drive. My questions is, If i reformatted the hard drive with windows on it, and all the drivers, would I have to re-install all the games, and programs from my other hard drive? Or will i just have to find the .exe for each one and copy it to my desktop or start menu or whatever. Will all the saved game data be available after a reformatt? And if so, will I be able to somehow get the computer to recognize it all and use it for my start menu, desktop etc.. Thank you, all help is appreciated.
your questions are confusing. Are you using the 160 as a system drive and you already have the Operating system installed on it? So why would you reformat it? You just bought a 500 and your going to use that as a slave drive? If thats the case you dont format anything. To make room on your 160 cut and paste movies, pictures, video, data files to your 500. Do not move your programs. You can uninstall and reinstall programs to your 500 Hope I was helpful Regards Paul
what I mean to ask is, if I were to put a bunch of new program files and new games on the 500 gb hard drive, and then i reformatted my 160 gb hard drive in the future ( eventually i will want windows 7.) Would i have to reinstall all those games and programs or would windows recognize it and utilize it through program files, and i would be able to play the same games with the game data.
All programs/games when installed in windows must make entries into the windows registry (always located in c: drive) , even if the actual program folder is in your 500gb d: drive. When you doubleclick the exe file in the program folder d: drive, it will look in the c: drive registry for the proper entries before it can start. If the entries are not found it won't start. There are programs that can backup only your programs/games including all the registry entries and allow you to reformat your c: drive (for whatever reason), when you reinstall windows just unpack your backup. Softrescue lets you pick which programs to backup, pcmover backups everything.
