new hd and os install - help needed

[green3500]

I have a 40GB WD IDE HD that has bad sectors. I can't fix them with scan disk, utilities, or any AV program that I've tried, and now its to the point of screwing up programs. So I broke down and ordered a new 120GB Seagate HD from newegg.com. I also want to upgrade from Win98 SE to Xp.

How should I go about this? Do I copy from the old HD to the new HD , then do the OS upgrade?

I do need to preserve a lot of the programs from the old HD, so I don't mind just copying the whole thing - but will there be errors because of the bad sectors? or won't that matter?

I haven't done this in a while... Do I first partition/format the new HD, then set it as a slave and copy the old one to it?

Thanks for the help!
-green3500

[Force Flow]

What I would do is disconnect the old drive, install the new one, install the O/S, then reconnect the old drive as a slave an pull the data over that you need.

You probably will not be able to copy most of the programs over. Do you still have the installation CDs and/or executables used to install them?

Take a look here: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=101377&highlight=win95

[Panama Red]

I agree with FF. Just set you boot order to CD first in your bios and boot to the XP cd. Before you begin the install on the new hdd, you'll have the options to set your partitons and format to NTFS (best for XP). When your XP install is completed, add your motherboard drivers and hardware drivers. Then fully update XP at Windows Update before you add the programs you want to install. You may need to extract drivers from the old install/recovery cd if you have it. Once that's complete, add the old hard drive as a slave and copy the files you wish to keep. Don't try to transfer programs tho, they need a clean install.

[green3500]

I'll give it a try when I get the new HD!

Thanks!