I know this is not the right forum for this subject, I am sorry, and I really need help. I have 20 gig HD and would like to replace it with the 40 gig HD but I don't know how to do it. I don't want to reinstall everything again, and is 40 gig is too big for the main HD

thanks

Western Digital drives come with a little app that will transfer the OS and files from an old drive to a new one.

But otherwise see if you can find PowerQuest Diskimage (or is it Driveimage? ... I forget) or Norton's Ghost, or similar. You basically make an image of the partitions on the first drive and then restore onto the second drive. The operating system needs to end up on an active partition, etc etc.

Why not install the second drive as a slave to the master?

Use a dual hard drive rounded cable to connect the drives to the motherboard.

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=811523/ut=4503f2bbc4b3921e

XP will recognize the drive and away you go!

Oh and by the way 40GB probably IS too big for your main hard drive. The usual recommendation would be to partition (i.e. divide) the disk into a smaller (say 10GB) partition for your OS and program files, and a larger 30GB partition for media files etc. The logic being that you'll want to defragment your OS/program drive frequently, and you dont want big media files cluttering up the middle of it.

If the 20 and 40GB drives are both the same ATA (e.g. ATA66 or ATA100) then the suggestion that you simply make the 40GB a slave drive is a good one. If the 40GB is a faster ATA, then you'll find that you boot a bit quicker if you shift your OS and proggies to it (provided the mboard supports the faster ATA and you use a suitable cable).