[mdlug-newbie] Swap Windows hard drive for openSUSE hard drive

[CLMalmsten]

Hello,

I'll soon be swapping out my Dell Inspiron 1000's hard drive, which is installed with Windows XP, and installing openSUSE on a new clean hard drive.

I learned yesterday at the mdlug meeting that before making the swap, I should backup the folder C:\Dell. I no longer have my original drivers/utilities disk from Dell, and Backup is not an option under System Tools. I'm wondering if I should backup anything besides this C:\Dell folder.

As a follow up to that question, does it matter whether I swap the hard drives out, or whether I keep the Windows hard drive where it is (in my laptop) and attach the new drive by USB? Any reason I wouldn't want to do that? and if I did connect the new drive by USB, would I have the option at startup to choose which hard drive to use?

Thanks for your help,
Christy