Which drive should have the OS?

[Zygmo]

Hey, guys. I have looked through the archives and did not find an answer to my specific question.

I have a Gigabyte GA-M61VME-S2, AMD 5000X2 CPU, 2Gs mem, with a Maxtor 200G SATA 150 HDD and a SATA Samsung DVD writer, running WinXP Pro. Nothing outstanding these days, but still a decent computer, built myself.
Recently I have been doing some video rendering, and in reading up on this, it is recommended that a dedicated second HDD be set up just for this. I have numerous PATA HDDs, and plan on using a Maxtor 120G.

My question is: Does it matter, referring to SATA and PATA, which HDD is used for the C drive OS? In other words, is there any advantage in using a specific one for the OS? My MB has a single IDE out, and two SATA out.
It seems like, sometime back I installed a PATA in the IDE out, and the computer recognized it no problem, booted up to the original SATA OS drive, but rearranged the drive letters, making the drive connected to the IDE the C drive. (it continued to boot up and work fine with the OS on the SATA)
I know it apparently does not matter whether the OS drive is C or not, but it just seems like it should be! :) By the way, I did not try manually changing the drive letters at the time.
Obviously, this computer (at least in the current BIOS setup) wants the C drive to be on the IDE connector.
There is not enough difference in speed between the two drives to be an issue, and the manufacturing dates are within a year of each other.

Is there any reason I should just install the drive on which I will be putting WinXP Pro, do the OS installation, and then install the second drive?

On the recommendations from here, I will be reformatting and reinstalling everything. (I do this periodically anyway, to remove any recently acquired monsters)
Thanks for your help.

[Vonunov]

"C" is an arbitrary designation made by Windows itself. There is no such thing as drive C outside of the operating system. I would recommend storing and rendering videos using a second drive to avoid any disk space issues on the OS disk. Your idea sounds good: Install OS on the one disk connected, then connect the other disk, format it how you need, and you should be good.

Also, drive letters aren't assigned in BIOS. Is it rearranging the boot device order when you connect additional drives? Otherwise I'm not sure what you mean.

[Zygmo]

Maybe I don't remember correctly either, Vonunov! After writing my post, I hooked up the 120G drive to the IDE connection, and it worked perfectly, and didn't change the drive letters. I could have sworn that the other time I put a HDD on that IDE connector, it rearanged my drive letters when I restarted. And I know windows asigns drive letters, not the BIOS. But....when you have been working with windows for 20 years or so, and always seeing the C drive as being your OS, and then suddenly having the letters changed....it can throw you for awhile. Might even cause the loss of some files, due to forgetting which drive is which. So, I prefer to keep the OS on the C drive.

Anyway, it seems to be working fine. I will disconnect the IDE drive, reformat and reinstall everything, and then add the IDE drive.

The separate HDD for video storage is not necessarily for the extra space...it is to keep video files from easily becoming fragmented. Also, it allows for moving the finished files to external drives, so the video drive can be reformatted now and then to clean it up, without having to reformat and reinstall the OS and all the programs.

Thanks for responding to my post.

[Kevin]

My Windows knowledge is old and not very good but.....

I suggest making the partition on the non-OS disk an extended/logical partition. Windows can't boot from a logical partition so you have no worry about it trying to become "C Drive".

Other than that, your BIOS boot order should handle everything. Note that in modern BIOSes there is usually a section for which device to boot from first of which hard drive will be a choice and a second screen to decide what order the hard drives should be chosen.

I would also recommend moving your page file to the second drive UNLESS you find yourself swapping while doing your video stuff on that drive.