New 7 install on added HDD,Dual Boot XP Pro

You won't offend anyone, just do what you're comfortable with and that's all that matters.

gregrocker said:

You can determine with certainty whether the 80gb is failing by running the maker's diagnostics/repair extended CD scan: HD Diagnostic
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp

If you want to proceed to put both OS's on the larger HD: unplug the old XP HD, follow the tutorial Method Two for when WIn7 is already installed, especially Steps 7-12 which will recover the Win7 boot which is lost when XP is installed and add it to the Dual Boot using EasyBCD 2.02.

Sometimes this won't work and requires starting up Win7 again to add XP with EasyBCD 2.02, by marking Win7 Active and running Startup Repair repeatedly until 7 starts.

It isn't clear what ASR you're referring to, however you cannot install an OS to an external HD and making one bootable to install XP is extremely difficult.

The Windows back-up recovery floppy, when used to restore my back-up from the external HDD after the malware incident, was referred to as the Automated System Recovery, I think, or maybe the "R" is for restore, Disk "ASR" during the process, using the ASR option, which is simply what the recovery disk is called as well as the process itself to restore the back-up. I did not know if the restore or recovery disk, some how is encoded with that particular drive, thus preventing me from using it to do a restore on the new XP PRO install and new drive, saving me a great deal of work getting it to where the old drive's OS already is.
I expected and hoped that I would be given the opportunity to discuss why I am not sure about the drive's condition. This is why: I used SEATools fom Seagate to run the S.M.A.R.T Drive test which failed but discovered that it is normally turned off so I turned it on and again it failed! The short and long tests passed. The advanced test warned not to use it without specific knowledge of workings so I did not try that test. I did use Nirsoft !00 tools to do an extended test and did not understand the data that it produced. I believe that I made a copy of that test data if you would understand what it means, or I can easily enough run it again to make sure that I have a fresh set of data for you all to look at. Do you want me to supply that data? I need to know why the SMART test failed. I have added the test results twice but the first time it was not present where I could find it. Text file 500+kb, what am I doing wrong?

The Nirsoft results shows OK's for most and this time it did the new drive as well. I have run chkdsk repeatedly through the tools menu so that the "F" parameter gets set. I learned that technique after using the command line and realizing that it was running in read only mode. I now always check both boxes and the last few times it has reported after the re-boot that all is well.
This is my problem. It first started giving RAM based error messages saying as it was shutting down that it was unable to write to 0x00000000 and then upon re-boot, most of the tray icons were missing. I found that Maxtor manager's "SYNC" function was a problem with others as well through a Google search. I removed it from both my machines and that particular error is gone. I downloaded and ran 2 RAM testing programs that were similar, one ran 9 tests and the other ran 11. I have 2 new quality IGB modules-800Mhz. and 4 - 512's/ 333/mhz.The states a bus speed of 400, which I interchanged because ever since I bought this professionally refurbished machine, 10 MB of RAM have been missing. 3062, instead of 3072MB. I have 4 slotts and replaced 2 of the 512's with the new 1GB modules which gave me two to interchange but still the same results. Also, I still do not have my icons loading. I used task manager to stop all of the processes of the missing icons and re-boot and get most back and sometimes all I have to do is reboot a second time and get all of them back. It's crazy! Look up at the previous post for the test results. IT won't let me add it to this post for some reason. I found the key of my error. I also just noticed your last question about using the back-up recovery floppy to install XP to the new partition, it that what you asked? It holds 1.44 MB. I would use it after the install to add the back-up in my external drive to bring the already installed XP PRO OS up to where it is in my other drive only. All of the Security updates, programs , upgraded drivers and everything else that I have done to that basic OS so I do not have to do it all over again.

It was rather humiliating when I found that I should have opened that text file before posting it. I am very sorry and will try to find another way to capture the whole document.

The Christal Disk Info 4.0.2 results were: Health Status Good!
Temperature 43 degrees C
All that I can conclude is that the drive is still good but another problem exists!

I am not sure if I took the time to say thanks previously but I am doing so now. I have been upgrading the 7 install as well as looking for the problem with the old drive which still fails the smart test.

I began the switch of the two drives and left the old disconnected as advised. Now, after putting New HDD in slot #1 and then connected to the SATA 0 position on the motherboard as well as the first position of the wide cable, it states: "No Boot Device Available", upon boot-up. Is it because it is not recognised as drive "C"?

I also tried to boot before I turned off the SATA 1 in the bios and it said that there was no drive available, I think, I forgot to write it down, (should have had my second cup of coffee first), so I turned it off and tried to boot again then I got the mentioned error message.