New HDD - installation?

[Mad Dave]

Hi Guys,

I've got an old AMD Athlon 800mhz machine which i'm slowly upgrading. Its currently got 2 HDDs in it, a 40gb and a 20gb. Both are full, so i've bought a Samsung Ultra ATA (wtf?!) 16gb drive with 8mb buffer. I intended to add this as a slave (probably removing the 20gb) and just use it to store my images, but i'm thinking that this drive may be rather faster than my old drive?

Now, that would mean adding it as the Master. Ive not done this since my Win95 days and back then I used FDisk to format and partition the drive - what on earth do I use now that I am using Win2K? I could add it as as Slave, format it and then swap them over, but of course this would be a 'Format' command, not a 'Format/s' if thats still current?

So, chaps, whats the best plan of action?

Dave

[SotonS2]

Mad Dave said:

Hi Guys, I've got an old AMD Athlon 800mhz machine which i'm slowly upgrading. Its currently got 2 HDDs in it, a 40gb and a 20gb. Both are full, so i've bought a Samsung Ultra ATA (wtf?!) 16gb drive with 8mb buffer. I intended to add this as a slave (probably removing the 20gb) and just use it to store my images, but i'm thinking that this drive may be rather faster than my old drive? Now, that would mean adding it as the Master. Ive not done this since my Win95 days and back then I used FDisk to format and partition the drive - what on earth do I use now that I am using Win2K? I could add it as as Slave, format it and then swap them over, but of course this would be a 'Format' command, not a 'Format/s' if thats still current? So, chaps, whats the best plan of action? Dave

Unless technology has left me standing - Master / Slave is set on jumper pins on the drive itself. Just set the jumper accordingly, make sure the POST finds the drive and format it in the usual way.

[Mad Dave]

Thanks.

Surely though, if im using it as a Master, when I switch the machine on, it may not even recognise the drive. Even if it does, i'll need some software with which to format it?

[SlidingSideways]

Did you mean a 160Gb drive? Replacing a 20Gb drive with a 16 when it's full doesn't really make much sense.

The speed of the drive shouldn't make any difference to if it's mater or slave, so set it to the same as the drive you're replacing. That should save you hours of fun with jumper settings and IDE cable positioning.

As for partitioning and formatting. I think this can all be done once Win2K is running. Right click on the "My Computer" icon on your desktop and select manage. Click on "Disk Management" and hopefully the disk you've installed will be displayed with no partitions present. Right click to create a partition, then format it.

HTH,
J

[Raify]

Mad Dave said:

Thanks. Surely though, if im using it as a Master, when I switch the machine on, it may not even recognise the drive. Even if it does, i'll need some software with which to format it?

Quite right, (you'll have to add it as slave, format, then re-do it as a master) but if you want to use it as a master you'll have to load Windows on to that, and transfer everything from your 40gb.

doesn't seem worth it to me, I'm not sure you'll notice a difference in speed. Easier just to install it as a slave. btw, if you've run out of slots, you could always mount it on the outside and keep all 3 drives!

[FourWheelDrift]

Mad Dave said:

Thanks. Surely though, if im using it as a Master, when I switch the machine on, it may not even recognise the drive. Even if it does, i'll need some software with which to format it?

Make a Windows floppy boot disk before doing it then

Useful site - www.bootdisk.com/

>> Edited by FourWheelDrift on Wednesday 19th January 13:28

[Mad Dave]

Sorry yes, a 160gb drive!

The only reason im considering using it as the Master is that I can then put all my apps onto a, say, 40gb partition of it and then as the drive is faster, my programs etc should load faster?

Is an 8mb buffer good?

Dave

[pdV6]

Most drive manufacturers have a downloadable utility that will handle everything for you. One of the (3?) manufacturers represented in your HDD collection will have something that will take all the pain out of the process. Have a look at their support sites and pick something appropriate.

[SotonS2]

A neater solution would be to format the 160Gb drive and set this as a slave (either internal or external).

Transfer all of your data onto the 160Gb drive and reformat the Windoze (Master) drive and do a clean 2k install with only the MS components required. Tip - defrag the HDD straight after installing Windoze - this will stick most of the the 2k files at the start of the HDD. Then install any other applications you require.

When the prog drive is set up, blag a copy of Norton Ghost and create an image of your program drive and store this on the 160Gb drive.

Stuff as much RAM as you can into the PC. The combination of extra memory and a clean, stripped Windoze install will make the PC boot much faster than the difference between a 7200 or 10000rpm HDD.

The Ghost image of the program drive means that when it gets clogged, or errored, or gets spyware / malware that you cannot get rid of, you can have the PC back up and running clean in a matter of minutes from the clean image.

[Mad Dave]

Thanks guys. Ill mount it as a slave I think.

[andygo]

Mad Dave said:

Thanks guys. Ill mount it as a slave I think.

I hope your'e very happy together....