Setting up hard drives

Hi all, new member here. I'm going to be doing a new build shortly and I need some advice on setting up my hard drives. Here's what I have. My present HD is 500 gigs with XP home installed. My new HD will be a 1 TB Western Digital that will have Windows 7 home installed. What would be the best strategy for partitioning the new HD? I"m thinking about a 100 gig partition for the OS and programs and the rest for storage, so I need to know about transferring the data from the old HD to the new one so I can reformat and use the old drive for storage/backup. Does this sound like a plan or is there a better way to go about it? I've only had to deal with one HD, so this is new to me and any info would be great. Thanks.
BTW, the files I want to transfer are mostly pics, movies, and music if that makes any difference.

I personally set aside 25GB for Windows, and the rest for games/apps/storage. Nothing should go on the C: drive, except for things you can't put elsewhere, because it all gets destroyed in a reformat. The less you have to back up off of C: before reformatting, the better.

So you plan to have both the 500GB and the 1TB in your new computer and scraping the old computer completely?

I would put the drive in your old computer or attach it via a USB or eSATA(if available) docking station, format the 1 TB with a 10GB partition first (make it 18GB if you plan to have 8GB of RAM in your new computer) and then the the rest as a single partition, and migrate all your data to the big partition on the 1TB. Then I would reformat the 500GB and I'm a little more generous than Thrax because HDs are cheap so I would probably give it 80GB for the OS and a 420GB partition. Then I would install both drives in your new machine and I would put the W7 OS on the 80GB partition as C:, I would use the big partion on the 1TB as D:, and I would use the 420GB as E:, and I would have the DVD as F: and I would make the 10GB partition something higher like X: (That way any USB devices that attach become G:, H: etc.)

Then you change your Pagefile to be on X:. And you drag and drop or relocate your libraries (Downloads, My Pictures, My Videos, My Music) from C: to the D: drive. And then move your migrated data under the appropriate library.

Thanks for the info. I don't have a USB docking station, so I suppose the only way I could do it like that is to format the TB drive and set it as a slave in the new machine, transfer the data, then reformat the 500 gig drive as suggested, labeling all partitions accordingly. Is there a reason to put the OS on the smaller drive? Sorry if that's a stupid question, but I'm not an uber geek and am always looking to learn more about how this stuff works. Thanks for your input! BTW, I was reading about pagefiles, and I see why it's desirable to move it to another drive. Thanks for the tip!

Well the reason I recommended putting the OS on the smaller drive was so you have the biggest amount of space for your data by putting it on the new drive.

Ask a stupid question...
I ran a diagnostic on the old HD this morning and it has a couple of bad sectors, so I'm gonna go with 2 new drives. Also, is there an issue with loading W7 from a SATA DVD ROM?

Well a couple bad sectors is not unusual. Have you ever gotten any S.M.A.R.T. warnings about the drive as that would worry me more than a couple sectors. When a sector goes bad the HD marks it to never be used ... bam, no more problem. If the amount of bad sectors starts growing or the SMART self tests start spitting out warnings then that is a definite sign to replace the drive. Even so, HDs are relatively cheap now and you can pick up 1Tb for around $60US.

What you might consider doing is cloning the OS drive to the old 500 once you have it installed, and all the programs installed, and all the settings as you like. Then take it out and slip the other data drive in. Then you pop the 500GB in a drawer as a complete back-up of your OS should you ever get infected by a virus or your OS drive crashes.

No, no issues from a SATA DVD-ROM that I'm aware of.

Okay, I was concerned about the system detecting SATA as opposed to IDE on a fresh install and initial startup of a brand new system.
No, I haven't gotten any S.M.A.R.T. warnings from the HD, but it has been hanging up when it tries to boot back up on a restart. I've been having to try to start multiple times before it decides to boot, so I'd rather start with new drives and either install it as a slave to get my data off or put it in another computer and access it via my home network. I'm not even sure I could set it as a slave with a separate OS on it. (I'm still researching as I go--it's been a while since I've even done a new build) That's the only method I know to try. If I didn't have so much on there, I wouldn't care, but I'd like to keep it all, if possible. I've even considered temporarily using a service like Carbonite to hold my files to keep them safe for now. I dunno...

If possible set your drives in AHC I- mode, no Master / Slave anymore and it is better for your drives with NCQ ( check first ) 0 = C, 1 = D, ...

Hey TM...

How do you clone the OS drive?