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master and slave drives

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My Dell Dimension 2300’s maxtor 30 gb hard drive finally went blue screen. I had a 7.5 gb hard drive that was given to me and after removing the jumper I finally got it to load and recognize XP. I used it a week before I got a running out of disc space message. So I deleted some stuff but the problem persisted because it was full.
I purchased a Seagate 250 gb ata drive that I installed as the slave figuring when the master was full the data and files would automatically transfer to it. It’s formatted as fat32 as is the master. I partitioned it with 122 gbs free space. then 3 partitions f,g and h with 30 gbs per partition and last there’s 22.9 gbs unalocated space. I did it this way to try and use all the disc space. XP wouldn’t let me have more than 30 gbs per partition unless it was an extended one. That’s why there’s 122 gbs free space at the front of disc 1 which is the slave.
Did I do this wrong by putting free space in front first, as I thought it would be an exteninsion of disc 0 which is the master. Will disc 1 the slave automatically pick up when the master drive is full or is it done manually by allocating the files. All discs and partitions are healthy.
Thanks from a new member as all input is appreciated KEN

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Clarifications

In reply to master and slave drives

Clarifications

Yup

In reply to master and slave drives

Windows does NOT automatically transfer files to an alternate drive. Nor, is there an easy way to append the free space on drive 1 onto drive 0.

Yes, XP does limit you to 30GB for FAT32 drives. This is because for drives larger than 20GB the NTFS file system is more efficient, secure and reliable.

Here is a good article on partition planning.
http://www.aumha.org/a/parts.htm
There are other articles on the site about XP that may be of value to you.

I use multiple drives and partitions myself.
C is for the operating system and related utilities and applications.
D is for installed programs.
E – M are organized by the type of data files stored there.

Chas

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