I have some concerns regarding the transfer of data from my current 20 gig hard drive to my new 80 gig hard drive. I am virtually certain that I will need a file transfer program, in addition to some sort of cables to complete the transfer. I am also planning on putting this hard drive that I am running off of right now (the 20 gig) into my Windows 98 machine, which is my backup comp; and making that Windows XP too. Now I have a question on that. Is it possible to transfer everything BUT the OS from this hard drive to the new one and leave the OS on this hard drive so that I can use it on my backup comp? If so, that would save me $200 in buying Win XP all over again; since when I bought this comp I did not get a Win XP CD with it. Any help in this area would be appreciated. Thanks!

"Is it possible to transfer everything BUT the OS from this hard drive to the new one and leave the OS on this hard drive" Just what do you plan to do with the new 80g HDD with just files and no operating system? If you are replacing your HDD you have to have an operating system. There are a number of cloning programs such as Norton Ghost that can copy your current HDD to the new one. You have to connect the new disk as slave, use FDISK from a 98/ME bootdisk to partition and format it then reboot to run the cloning software from a bootable floppy or CD. Then take out the old drive, set jumpers on the new one to master and boot up. As to the other question of using your current XP HDD in your backup machine, I don't think it will work without an XP CD to run a Repair instal. There will be just too many hardware differences. You may as well then format the 20g drive and clone your 98 onto it, or leave it blank and just use it as slave storage in your 98 machine.

"Just what do you plan to do with the new 80g HDD with just files and no operating system? If you are replacing your HDD you have to have an operating system." I wanted to copy everything, including the OS, over to the new hard drive for this comp and then leave a copy of my OS on the hard drive when I transfer it to the other comp. "There are a number of cloning programs such as Norton Ghost that can copy your current HDD to the new one. You have to connect the new disk as slave, use FDISK from a 98/ME bootdisk to partition and format it then reboot to run the cloning software from a bootable floppy or CD. Then take out the old drive, set jumpers on the new one to master and boot up." I think you are saying that I should run the 98 OS on the new HD, seeing as how I have a CD for it (right?) "As to the other question of using your current XP HDD in your backup machine, I don't think it will work without an XP CD to run a Repair instal. There will be just too many hardware differences. You may as well then format the 20g drive and clone your 98 onto it, or leave it blank and just use it as slave storage in your 98 machine." I understand that now that I think about it. It does make sense that each OS is configured to each comp that it is installed in. I am now considering whether or not to run the 98 OS on the new HD, since as I said before I have a CD for it.