XP, 7, partitions and HDD problems

[Donfuy]

Ok, so, I have two HDD's - one 80gb (master, with XP) and one 40gb (slave, with no OS).

I wanted to try Windows 7, so I made a partition of 12GB in the 40gb, as the master was full.
I installed it, and I was amazed. So amazed I wanted to kick XP out of my way and let room for 7 to come as the one.

So, I installed 7 on the master HDD, after some 12GB clean-up, and I soon found problems: it was slower, much slower than the 7 I had in the slave (the one I'm using right now). I restarted the PC, and the Windows 7 took so many fucking time to load, I almost kicked the fucking tower.

Thought: well, why did I install 7 on this hard disk, if I already have 7, totally configured, with drivers and all?
Then I came back the slave, and I found one terrible problem: it doesn't recognize the other HDD.

So, what I want to ask you is:
1. Any ideas why it doesn't recognize the master?
2. Can a really bad fragmentation on the 80gig HDD cause its slowness?

Solutions would be appreciated.

Thanks :D

EDIT: if I make the 80gb, a slave too, could it solve the problem? =/


Just found why the master was "missing". 7 didn't gave a drive letter to it, and made it a ghost drive. So, I just had to give the master HDD, formerly "E", the letter "B".

Now it's fully working, and I'm very happy!

By the way, now I can see (I was blind... haha) the fragmentation on the master - fuck, I can't see. The analyzing freezes at 36% O.o It must be oh-so-fragmented. Imma using Auslogics DiskDefrag or the one from the guys of CCleaner.

[smartalco]

2. Can a really bad fragmentation on the 80gig HDD cause its slowness?

Just going off your description of the problem, I'd say that is a pretty good guess at the reason behind the slowness. I'd wipe 7 off the 80gb, return the XP partition to full size, defrag, repartition, then install 7 again.
No idea why your other drive wouldn't be seen anymore.

You could just buy a new HD, you can get a 160gb for as cheap as $40
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136075
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148230

[Donfuy]

2. Can a really bad fragmentation on the 80gig HDD cause its slowness?

Just going off your description of the problem, I'd say that is a pretty good guess at the reason behind the slowness. I'd wipe 7 off the 80gb, return the XP partition to full size, defrag, repartition, then install 7 again.

Mmm, I haven't made a partition for the master's 7. I installed 7, and because of language issues, the XP folder remained, but inactive.


I'll maybe do that, if I can't find a way of this 7 to recognize the master - it would be so much easier.