Need a new HD, help/suggestions.

by **Horsepower** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 6:31 pm

Anandtech Hot Deals forum is your friend.

Maxtor 200GB 8mb Cache $118 The $30 off $150 coupon can probably be found at Fatwallet.com

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=40&threadid=1238237

by **Murgatroyd** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 11:07 am

OK, so I finally ordered the new drive (had a minor financial crisis), and now I have a couple more questions.

Should I put my OS on the new, faster drive? Will that have an affect on performance? If so, what's the easiest way to transfer my OS from my current drive onto the new one?

by **Irish** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 11:18 am

Two run two drives you will need to put jumpers in order. The drive that you want to boot from is the master and you'll slave the other one. My suggestion is to set the master as the new faster one and get it going. Forget that there is an OS on the other one for now. When the PC boots it will look for the OS on the master drive and not the old drive. At this point pull over any files you want on the new drive. I then would go into the other drive and delete all files you don't need on it. Someone double check this but it worked for me in the past.

by **Major SONAR** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 11:56 am

I would recommend (as Irish suggested) installing the OS on the new drive. Always start from a fresh install, this will lead to less problems down the road AND you will see an increase in speed due to less clutter on your new HD. Next you will need to start installing all your programs. I usually install the programs on the new HD then copy over the new files with the old files from the old HD. (That way I don't loose all my settings and the registry is setup correctly) Others may disagree with me, but this is how I do it.

I used to set the drives to Master/Slave as Irish suggested, but recently I have found that the CS (cable select) setting works very well also. Either way will work.

It is my understanding that if you have two IDE devices (ie. CDROM, Hard Drive) on the same cable, then the devices will only transfer data at the rate of the slowest device. Technology changes all the time and this may no longer be the case. You may want to run your new HD on it's own cable is this is an option.

Overall I agree with the advice Irish has given above.

My 2 cents (from a person who has been building his own machines for about 10 years)

by **Mighty Mazz** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 1:09 pm

Am I the only one with a 20gb drive left alive? Man I have like 5 gb free right now and to me thats like a massive amount of room. What the hell do you guys do that you would need 200 GB of room. Theres something, it's called the recycling bin use it. :lol:

by **Murgatroyd** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 1:10 pm

My current is 20 gig..

which is why I'm upgrading...

by **Bagginses** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 1:12 pm

Originally posted by Musashi X
Am I the only one with a 20gb drive left alive? Man I have like 5 gb free right now and to me thats like a massive amount of room. What the hell do you guys do that you would need 200 GB of room. Theres something, it's called the recycling bin use it.

I have a 15 Gig I use for my main, and a 20 Gig I use for MP3s and games and such. I still consider that alot as well, but then again, I only have one game installed on my computer...

-Bagginses

by **Mighty Mazz** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 1:16 pm

Heh 15 gig thats awesome. Smaller runs faster anyway right. :roll:

Thinking bout getting an external HD for music uses but for now I'm a cd s all over the place kind of guy.

by **Major SONAR** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 3:42 pm

You guys need to up grade! Sheesh a 20 Gb... Do they even make those anymore??

You can purchase a 160Gb HD (albeit not the 8 Mb cache) for $60 after rebates.

I have a lot of MP3's and I bought an extra drive just to back up for my music. Are bigger drives slower? I wouldn't think so. They might be slower, but then again they might be faster.... new technology and all that. Of course we're just talking a few milliseconds here, but the higher RPM speeds (5400 vs. 7200) and additional cache (2 Mb vs. 8 Mb) certainly help increase performance.

I bought a cheap ($60) 120 Gb, 7200 RPM, 8 Mb WD HD about 6 months ago along with an external Firewire/USB 2.0 enclosure ($50). So for about $110, I now have a portable HD to backup anything. I take that thing everywhere. Best $110 I've spent in a while. Highly recommended!

by **Murgatroyd** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 6:31 pm

Ok, so, I installed the new HD, configured the jumpers for the new drive to be the master, and the old to be the slave.

First of all, it booted the OS off of the old one, and I can't access the new one.

Okay, so I remove the old one completely and boot with just the new one, and nothing happens. Bumkis. Please help.

by **Major SONAR** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 9:08 pm

Ok.. here is what you need to do.

1) You configure your old drive as the Master drive
2) Configure the new drive as Slave
3) reboot the system
4) After windows has booted open "Windows Explorer" NOT Internet explorer
5) Do you see the new drive? If you don't see the new drive you may have to reboot to DOS. Let's assume you see the new drive. In order to use your new drive you will need to format it.
6) Right click on the new drive and choose format. Follow the prompts. Depending on the size of the drive and the speed of your computer, this may take a while.

If you did not see your drive from Windows then:

1) Keep the same configuration as above. Old drive = Master, New Drive = slave.
2) Chances are good a floppy disk came with your new HD. Put the floppy disk in your computer.
3) Reboot your computer with the floppy disk in your A: drive.
4) as your computer is rebooting, you may need to enter CMOS to configure the computer to scan your floppy first. If your computer is set to scan the floppy drive first then the computer will boot from the floppy disk. Follow the prompts on the screen to format your Hard Drive. REMEMBER** Don't FORMAT your C: drive!!:D

If... the computer did not boot from the floopy, but instead went into Windows, you will then need to reboot and enter CMOS.

How do you enter CMOS?? As the computer is booting you must press a key to enter CMOS. Usually the "Insert" or the "Delete" key. If you see the Windows start up screen you missed getting into CMOS. If this happens, reboot then try to enter CMOS again.

Once you get into CMOS look for something that talks about "BOOT SEQUENCE". You will want to make sure you choose Floopy as the first boot option, then HD, then CD..etc.
Once you have selected to have your floppy boot first, then save your settings and exit.

Your computer should now boot from the floppy... Follow the onscreen prompts and it should format your new drive.

If you have problems, send me a private email and I will give you my phone number and I can talk you through it.

Good luck.. it's pretty simple once you do it a couple of times.

by **Murgatroyd** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 9:11 pm

I stumbled upon a "disk manager" utility in Windows that allowed me to format and assign a volume to the new drive. I also found out that the CD that came with my computer that is "windows" isn't actually Windows.. it's just a stupid recovery CD that tells you to call tech support. Yeah, smooth. Thanks for the advice, though, it is much appreciated!

Also, for some reason, I have the new one configured as the master and the old as the slave, in the BIOS and with the jumpers, but it still boots off of the old one.. oh well.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the drive didn't appear in windows explorer until after I formatted it with the disk manager util.. weird.

by **Major SONAR** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 9:26 pm

I forgot to mention that the drive didn't appear in windows explorer until after I formatted it with the disk manager util.. weird.

That's normal. Since it's not formated, Windows doesn't recognize it.

You still need to install the OS on your new drive to boot to windows. Then after that, you may need to go into CMOS and set the boot seqence... I don't think you will need to change the boot sequence, once you install the OS on the new drive.

Once you install the OS on the new drive, reboot and see what happens.

Good luck

by **Major SONAR** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 9:28 pm

You still need to install the OS on your new drive to boot to windows. Then after that, you may need to go into CMOS and set the boot seqence... I don't think you will need to change the boot sequence, once you install the OS on the new drive.

That's IF you want to start using your new HD as your main drive. If you are happy with your old drive as the main drive, then you are finished.

Need a new HD, help/suggestions.

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