my harddrive is full

You can add the second hard drive now as a slave drive. You may need to change jumpers on your present drive, and may need to enter BIOS setup so that the motherboard can find the new drive.

You need to decide if you are going to format the driveas a FAT32 or NTFS volume, and if you are going to partition it as a single large drive or several smaller volumes.

Check out the partition planning article at http://www.aumha.org/win4/a/parts.htm

Once you have the drive installed, you can safely move data files to the new drive.

Yes, you can upgrade to XP Pro with at least the retail upgrade version. I am not sure if the OEM version of XP Pro will allow you to upgrade your home version to pro.

Since your drive is full, I recommendthat you check the following areas, and see if you can free up some additional space.

C:\documents and settings\user name\My recent files

C:\Windows\Temp

C:\Windows\Temporary Internet files

You want a minimum of 2GB free space on the C: drive and preferably 5GB before installing XP Pro.

Chas

TheChas is correct as always but you have a few other things you can do. Like use the migration function in XP to move data from one drive to a new one. If you use XPpro install it first then migrate. Most good drives include or give you a place to down load drive copy software. But be sure to read the readme text and do every thing it tells you to do.

Part 1
Hi,

You have been given good information already, but there is more you can do to free up space on the 40 Gig. drive, once you have installed the 80 Gig. drive.
I would set up a 2 Gig. partition on the new drive and move the pagefile file to it. Allow Windows to manage this pagefile. Set up 2 mg. of the pagefile on the C: drive for Windows minidump file. You can use the rest of the new drive for data and future application installations.
Next I would move the "temporary internet files" to the new drive. Control Panel\Internet Options\Temporary Internet Files\Settings\Move Folder. Here you can sellect where you want these files stored. I would also retrict the size of the folder used for these files.
Next, unless you are proneto reinstating files from the recycle bin, I would restrict it size to 1% of the drive space. By default, Windows set this at 10%. You can do this by right clicking the recycle bin icon and Properties\Global and sliding the bar until it reads 1%. Global only appears when you have multiple partitons and/or drives, otherwise it will be at the first box.
"My Documents" can also be moved to the new drive. Right click the "My Documnets" desktop icon and you have the option to move this to a new location. They will no longer be under your user profile, but you can secure them by them going to the folder's location and right clicking on it. Choose "Sharing and Security" and then the "ocal Sharing and Security" and checking the box "Make This Folder Private".

Part 2
Finally, you can move the temp directory to the new drive. To do this, right click on My Computer\Properties\Advanced\Environment Variables and then you can edit the path for the TEMP and TMP directories.
You can also move your email messages and account profile to the new drive when using Outlook. Create a folder, on the new drive, and name it Mail. Next, with Outlook closed, MOVE the pst file to this directory. Name the pst file to the user's profile name for easy reference later, example - trav.pst. The next time you open Outlook, it will say that it can not locate your pst file and allow you to search for it. Just direct it to the new location. If you are not using the corporate settings for Outlook email, you can also export out your account settings to this directory naming it by profile name. Outlook Express requires a registry edit. We will not go there for right now.
These steps will not only free up space on C:, but also makes bachups of vital data easier. You can format C: and still have most of your vital data intact. The "Favorites" folder can be copied to the Mail folder, if so desired. The default location will be, C:\Documents and Settings\%profilename%\Favorites. Just copy the entire folder to :\Mail. Your only other concerns will be for application specific databases, such as Quicken. You can start these applications and choose your default database path or do their backups to the new drive.

I hope this helps.

All the above is good. However, if your plan is to add the 80 GB HDD and upgrade to Win XP pro at the same time I would take the simple option of changing the jumpers to make your current HDD the Primary Slave drive, place the new drive in as the Primary Master, leave the old drive disconnected for the moment.

Load Win XP Pro onto the new HDD as a brand new install, when completed trun off and plug in the old drive as the 'D' drive. The system should boot to the new drive and you can then use XP on the new drive to clean up the old drive by removing unwanted folders etc. load all your applications etc onto the new system and then use the old drive as your programas or data drive only. this should save you time and get rid of any no longer used legacy drivers etc.

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