getting a new slave, what are the best options

In about a week I'll be ready to install a new slave drive. The master will hold, of course, the OS, as well as utility programs and be the primary center for virtual memory. All games will be on the slave, where most of the room is, and most of the room is taken up. And because I know the OS is not on the slave, then I can safely deleted anything from the slave. Also downloaded files will be placed on the slave, as well as MP3s.

So what is usually the best way to handle this in this day and age:

Have the master as C:, and the slave as D:? This would help with origanization a lot.

OR

Combine then as C:? I never knew this was possible until a friend told me. It sounds good, but can get a bit messy. I do not install games, and even most utilities in the program files. I install things in their own folders.

Also, are there any other, perhaps better options when setting up slave? I'll be calling in tech support (hey, it's free ) to help with the installation, but I want to make sure I know that they know how I want it to be setup in the system.

Re: getting a new slave, what are the best options

Hmmz... Didn't quite catch what you asked about....

But anyways..

If your 'puter only has one harddrive, install the new harddrive as master on the second IDE controller, and move the CD/DVD to slave....

As for how to set it up...
I'd advice against spanning the drive so you "only" have C:... It'd just be messy...
Going for OS on C: is best (and the only option unless you really want to work on getting it to work again!)...

The second harddrive can be used as D:... You can also partition the harddrive into more than one "drive"...

I suggest you partition the second drive into 2 drives...
One for games (make this the biggest partition)
and one for mp3's and other downloaded files... (with the rest of the space)...
This'll make it easy to check how much space you've got free for new games and mp3's/other files... And you can safely format each of these partitions without harming any data on the other...

.02$

Always keep your data on one drive/partition and your OS(and programs) on another drive/partition.

Just fit the new drive as a slave and format it. Don't mess around with merging NTFS volumes or anything like that....

Its best to keep your OS on one partition. When you want to reinstall, you don't have to backup all your mp3s, movies, etc.... You can just format the OS partition and leave everything else alone.

Swap file should go at the begininng of your fastest drive, with IDE I does matter if it's the slave or master, as only one will be address at a time.
Consider moving the O?S to the first partition on the fastest drive, and puting the other drive on the secondary ide channel. (as master, unlees that is need for a cd burner, etc.)