Hi, I recently replaced one of my 2 Hard drives by a larger one. As a consequence, the second HD is now the biggest of the two. my OS is installed on the first one ( the smaller). People tell me that I should install the OS on the second (the larger) one, but I don't like to switch the master/slave or mess up my BIOS. My question is : Does it hurt running the OS from the smaller drive? I know that running from the smaller drive is causing some performance loss, but is the performance loss not too significant? Some details : small drive : 20 GB fast large drive : 80 GB fast secondly, due to the switch, my drive letters have changed also : C drive : 20 GB D drive : CDROM E drive : CD-RW F drive : 80 GB how can I change the drive letters, so that my 80 GB HDD is placed on D, and my CD-ROm on F ?

it would be a benefit to save all your data on to your new 80gb drive. keep your windows install on the 20gb as well as other software. that way if you ever have to format your hard drive because of an error/virus etc you won't risk losing your data. if you set your page file to be on the 80gb it would help speed things up a little, but there are no major advantages to having xp on the larger drive that i know of.

Changing the drive letters is an easy thing to do; however you have to be careful. If you have software that is installed that points to drive "F" (for example) and you change the letter to "D", that software will not work. When software is installed it writes to the registry and those pointers have to be redone if you change the drive letters. Reinstalling the software after the change is the only way to repair this issue. If the drive is just storage, then nothing is affected. With that said go to Control Panel/ Administrative Tools/ Computer Management/ Look in the LEFT column and click on "Disk Management". In the top right column "right click" on the drive you want to change the letter. Choose "Change Drive Letter and Path"

at the moment the only thing installed that may cause problems is a game that needs the CD-ROM (on D), but reinstalling it is not a problem. Thanks!!