Hard Drive upgrade help
Discussion
I was hoping you could help with my hard drive upgrade.
I saw a thread a while ago with decent priced 80Gig drives - and im going to go off and hunt for that in a tic.
My bigger issue is my PC.
I currently have 2 hard drives, something like 8 & 12 gig.
Ideally I want to get the new drive and use it as the primary, with the 12G (current primary) as the second HDD.
However, I have things like iTunes installed - now i have a maxtor, so I can backup the entire HDD's onto this, but the primary is currently F: where 1/2 the iTunes music is, with the backup C: having the other half.
Now, I'm pretty sure if I install the new as the primary, this becomes C: with F: as the backup - which will mess up iTunes, and anything else with relative paths.
So, my questions are as follows:
1. Is there anyway to define the drive letter of a new drive (going to install XP) during first boot?
2. Is there anyway to 'mirror' a harddrive onto a new one - so say, copy current Pri to the new one and everything work as before? Or is a new install required?
3. Any help or tips?
I saw a thread a while ago with decent priced 80Gig drives - and im going to go off and hunt for that in a tic.
My bigger issue is my PC.
I currently have 2 hard drives, something like 8 & 12 gig.
Ideally I want to get the new drive and use it as the primary, with the 12G (current primary) as the second HDD.
However, I have things like iTunes installed - now i have a maxtor, so I can backup the entire HDD's onto this, but the primary is currently F: where 1/2 the iTunes music is, with the backup C: having the other half.
Now, I'm pretty sure if I install the new as the primary, this becomes C: with F: as the backup - which will mess up iTunes, and anything else with relative paths.
So, my questions are as follows:
1. Is there anyway to define the drive letter of a new drive (going to install XP) during first boot?
2. Is there anyway to 'mirror' a harddrive onto a new one - so say, copy current Pri to the new one and everything work as before? Or is a new install required?
3. Any help or tips?
Sounds like you want to make life hard for yourself. First to answer your q's, yes to all of them. You can name a drive any letter you choose (excluding a: & b: I believe). It is possible to mirror a drive to another one using tools such as norton ghost but for your purposes I wouldnt.
My plan would be to buy a new drive and make it bigger than 80GB (samsung do a nice 250GB for £46+VAT) install a fresh set of windows and make it the master (need to alter jumpers on back of drive if two drives installed). I would then copy all of your important info accross to that from your old disk (just plug it into the computer and set it as a slave, jumpers on back again). Format that disk then and use it as storage or an archive. With regards to Itunes looking in C: for your files it makes no difference. You will of course have to re-install Itunes and any programs that where under the old operating system as they will no longer be in the registry of the new operating system. Alternatively you could alway leave the operating system as it is and just use the new drive as the slave and copy the other stuff on to the current master. Confused?
My plan would be to buy a new drive and make it bigger than 80GB (samsung do a nice 250GB for £46+VAT) install a fresh set of windows and make it the master (need to alter jumpers on back of drive if two drives installed). I would then copy all of your important info accross to that from your old disk (just plug it into the computer and set it as a slave, jumpers on back again). Format that disk then and use it as storage or an archive. With regards to Itunes looking in C: for your files it makes no difference. You will of course have to re-install Itunes and any programs that where under the old operating system as they will no longer be in the registry of the new operating system. Alternatively you could alway leave the operating system as it is and just use the new drive as the slave and copy the other stuff on to the current master. Confused?
Fidgits said:
I currently have 2 hard drives, something like 8 & 12 gig.
Ok. This sounds like quite an old PC, if you still have the manual flip through it and see if it mentions the largest drive size that can be supported. This figure will in effect determine what it's worth buying.
Fidgits said:
1. Is there anyway to define the drive letter of a new drive (going to install XP) during first boot?
You can install XP Pro anywhere you want. The installer doesn't make it clear, but as you define partitions you can nominate which one to install to. However, the number of things that are hard wired to look at C: (which unfortunately does include viruses) is amazing. I don't believe XP Home allows for this though, it acts much like Win98/ME from memory (i.e. 1st partition, primary master)
Fidgits said:
2. Is there anyway to 'mirror' a harddrive onto a new one - so say, copy current Pri to the new one and everything work as before? Or is a new install required?
Norton Ghost. It will just go 'splat' and clone the drive.
i cant find the link - i think i need an IDE or something, the motherboard is a couple of years old..
infact, the PC itself is coming up a decade, i upgraded the PSU, motherboard and CPU a couple of years ago, then the RAM, the HDD.. (cost about £300)
And then last year I had to upgrade the graphics card because of SP2 (20 quid)..
Now i'm considering £40 on another HDD..
part of me is thinking I should just shell out and get a new PC.
But, mine still works fine for what i need it for (though HDD space is getting a little tight), but the case is 10 years old, as are the DVD and CDRW drives..
All I do really is iTunes/Pictures/Surfing and the odd game (not since i got the xbox though), and i just dont want to keep throwing money at this old box...
So, could anyone reccomend a decent PC (dont need a screen though) for a reasonable price i'd appreciate it!
infact, the PC itself is coming up a decade, i upgraded the PSU, motherboard and CPU a couple of years ago, then the RAM, the HDD.. (cost about £300)
And then last year I had to upgrade the graphics card because of SP2 (20 quid)..
Now i'm considering £40 on another HDD..
part of me is thinking I should just shell out and get a new PC.
But, mine still works fine for what i need it for (though HDD space is getting a little tight), but the case is 10 years old, as are the DVD and CDRW drives..
All I do really is iTunes/Pictures/Surfing and the odd game (not since i got the xbox though), and i just dont want to keep throwing money at this old box...
So, could anyone reccomend a decent PC (dont need a screen though) for a reasonable price i'd appreciate it!
Fidgits said:
So, could anyone reccomend a decent PC (dont need a screen though) for a reasonable price i'd appreciate it!
Check the Computers thread that has "New PC for dad" or "Dad needs a new PC" it'll either be on this page or the next, it mentions an Acer for £299. Seems good enough.
magic torch said:
Fidg, you do know it's now 2007?
Does yours have a 'Turbo' button on it?
Does yours have a 'Turbo' button on it?
actually....
no.
Look, the problem is, I bought this damn thing nearly 10 years ago at Uni, and ever since have ended up upgrading odds and sods every year. I should really get a new one I know, but after splurging £300 a couple of years ago on Motherboard/Cpu, and seeing how it does actually work perfectly well for my requirements (okay, getting low on HDD space) I just think spending £400-500 quid on a new machine might be a waste.
But then i really should get up to speed with dual-cores, PCIe, SATA etc...
It's just to get a decent machine, its gonna cost, and if i ended up with a new cheap celeron, its not going to be any better than what ive got already!
magic torch said:
Fidgits said:
you aint that old Jamie...
It was well over 10 years ago...
I had an Amiga, but virtually nobody had a PC at home. Couldn't afford one, even with the monochrome screen.
huh.
I remember our first x286 with the green screen, a long, long time ago, and it can't of been that expensive if we had one, but then I think our old man did work in computers back then, so probably did some deal on an older one
I bought this beast in the second year of Uni with a Whopping 600Mhz Athlon processor.. a quantum leap from that old thing (but then it probably was about 8 years later!)
Edited by Fidgits on Saturday 6th January 12:11
Fidgits said:
It's just to get a decent machine, its gonna cost, and if i ended up with a new cheap celeron, its not going to be any better than what ive got already!
Most cheapo machines are AMD Athlon X2 (like the Acer, Dell's low end desktops), it's AMD's version of Core 2 Duo.
Anyway, on topic. You have these options:
1. Buy a PATA 40Gb HDD and hope it works with the old motherboard.
2. Buy any PATA drive you like and a EIDE PCI controller card. This will bypass the disk controllers on the board and thus eliminate the 'will it work'.
3. Buy any new SATA drive and a SATA PCI controller card. You may, depending what comes with the drive need a SATA power converter. This will again bypass the controllers on the motherboard.
ThePassenger said:
Fidgits said:
It's just to get a decent machine, its gonna cost, and if i ended up with a new cheap celeron, its not going to be any better than what ive got already!
Most cheapo machines are AMD Athlon X2 (like the Acer, Dell's low end desktops), it's AMD's version of Core 2 Duo.
Anyway, on topic. You have these options:
1. Buy a PATA 40Gb HDD and hope it works with the old motherboard.
2. Buy any PATA drive you like and a EIDE PCI controller card. This will bypass the disk controllers on the board and thus eliminate the 'will it work'.
3. Buy any new SATA drive and a SATA PCI controller card. You may, depending what comes with the drive need a SATA power converter. This will again bypass the controllers on the motherboard.
1. PATA? is that just ATA? The motherboard is only 18 months-2 years old, i can't imagine it having too many problems?
Fidgits said:
1. PATA? is that just ATA? The motherboard is only 18 months-2 years old, i can't imagine it having too many problems?
Yes. aka EIDE, ATA100, etc, etc. Basically the one with the thick ribbon cable.
18 months - 2 years, it should be fine with any large drive... again manual and/or google the motherboard to see what it's capabilities are to double check.
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