Temporarily Replacing Second Hard Drive : My aging desktop computer has the following physical hard drives: Disk 1 – Internal Hard Drive (C:). Disk 2 – Internal Hard Drive (E: & F:). Disk 3 – New External Hard Drive (H:). I also have an old 250GB external hard drive from which I want to transfer files to Disk 3 (my new 500GB External Hard Drive H). I was advised to: 1 – Back up my entire system. 2 - Temporarily detach the existing Disk 2 from its ribbon cable. 3 – Install the old external hard drive in its place. 4 – Reboot the computer to recognize the new drive configurations. 5 – Copy the files from the old external hard drive to Disk 3. 6 – Detach the old external hard drive. 7 – Re-attach Disk 2 in its place. 8 – Reboot the computer to recognize the new drive configurations. I’m a step-by-step guy … and only semi-computer literate at that. Also … I haven’t seen the inside of my computer in ages … so how can I be sure I’m detaching Disk 2 and not Drive 1? Any other precautions? Thanks. Shamrock838 P.S. Existing OS: - MS Windows XP Pro (Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600). Existing Internet Explorer: - Internet Explorer (Version 7.0.5730.12 Build 75730).

If the old hard drive is an external hard drive, can you not just connect both external hard drives and copy the files? Best way to determine which is drive C is to check the size of the hard drives and match them up with what they say on the hard drive itself if you look inside the case. Otherwise, you can just disconnect one, and if the computer boots to Windows, you picked the right one, otherwise it won't boot at all because the other hard drive would not have an OS on it. Or, you can copy a big file from external > one of the internal drives and listen to hear which one is making all the noise. :)

My first question would be this. Is the copy of the files on the old External the ONLY copy of those files? If so, you should consider keeping TWO copies of those files. If that is what you want to do keep this in mind. You should be able to connect BOTH external drives at the same time. If all you want to do is copy from on to the other you should be able to perform that using My Computer. A more elequent method is to use software that will sync two folders/partitons. I use a product called Beyond Compare. This program can synchronize any two folders/partitions, etc. It is shareware that allows 30 days, which is actually 30 usage days. This program is worth the cost but you can try the fully functional program for free. http://www.download.com/Beyond-Comp...