Adding a second Hard Drive to a computer - Page 2

geoschmo · #11 January 3rd, 2003, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Thermodyne:
If I remove IBM hard drives from the equation, main Boards fail more often then hard drives on the average home computers I service.

Don't I know it.

Gryphin · #12 January 3rd, 2003, 06:18 PM

rdouglass is right about the relyablity issue.
Over all I'd say,
Prepare the 60 to be hooked up on a moments notice and store it in a safe place.
Make daily, (or when ever needed), backups to a CD R.
Store copys of critcal backups off site.
Sleep Easy.

Jmenschenfresser · #13 January 3rd, 2003, 06:19 PM

This thread is giving me data paranoia

Wardad · #14 January 3rd, 2003, 06:38 PM

I have not had a problem with my Western Digital hard drives. Other than finding a good home for the old ones when I upgrade.
I have been using a 27gig drive for about 4 years now. It has outLasted a CD-RW, a monitor, and stayed with me through 2 major upgrades.

One note about adding another drive. Many games look for the CD in the drive (letter) it was installed from.
Ex: a MOO2 installed from drive D will not run from drive E. You would have to reinstall it or maybe edit a setup file.

Thermodyne · #15 January 3rd, 2003, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DarkHorse:

quote:
Originally posted by Thermodyne:
... And there is one very popular chipset in wide use that is becoming notorious for corrupting data written to the hard drive if default bios settings are used.

Which chipset are you referring to?

Sorry, I�m not rich and powerful enough to say that in a public forum. PM me.

Thermodyne · #16 January 3rd, 2003, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Wardad:
I have not had a problem with my Western Digital hard drives. Other than finding a good home for the old ones when I upgrade.
I have been using a 27gig drive for about 4 years now. It has outLasted a CD-RW, a monitor, and stayed with me through 2 major upgrades.

One note about adding another drive. Many games look for the CD in the drive (letter) it was installed from.
Ex: a MOO2 installed from drive D will not run from drive E. You would have to reinstall it or maybe edit a setup file.

Depends on the OS. For example, 2K will assign the next available drive letter, and leave the CD reader as is.

And I agree, WD's are good. I use WD and Seagate now.

Suicide Junkie · #17 January 3rd, 2003, 07:03 PM

Perhaps some related tales from work and home

The Tale of Thunder:
Early one morning, the receptionist at work, sat down to start work.
She pushed the power button on her PC.
BOOOM! A cloud of smoke started rising from the cubicle beside her.
BOOM! Another cloud from the next one after that.
BOOM! Another one in the third cubicle.

As it was starting to get pretty smoky in the office at that point, she was starting to panic, called the bosses downstairs, and was running around turning everything off that she could.

The electrician had to be called in to redo the wiring in the walls.

Total casualties:
- 3 power supplies
- 1 motherboard
- 0 harddrives.

At home, My power supply quietly started increasing the voltage going out for an unknown reason.
The harddrive was the first to go. Replacements ran way too hot (>45 degrees C) even when idling. Burned out after only a week of use.
In the meantime, my CPU fan died, and would twitch sporadically instead of spin. Likely the same problem.
By the time I discovered what was going on, it was too late, and my motherboard was toast too.
The only original components on my PC now are the outer case, 50% of the RAM, and the CPU.

Yet despite all that, my files are mostly intact.
I had made a disk image of my C

ive back in August, and had all my files on different partitions of the single 40GB disk.
So I had my image, of all places, on the same physical disk as the data it was backing up!

At the moment, I have one 40GB primary drive in my machine, split into the C-Drive (windows) and D-Drive (games/files), and E-Drive (windows CD)
I also invested in an "industrial grade" surge protector and a CD-rewritable drive. Ten bucks for a package of CD-RWs, and I now have a set of 650 Meg "floppies" to use for backing things up on. Works just like the A drive used to when harddrives were 40 Megabytes

What I would like to do is to make a basic install of windows, and load my regular programs, but to the D

ive.
Then take an image of the C-drive to capture the registry, and all the windows files in one swoop.
Should fit on a regular CD or two.
Then I can use my rewritables to back up my SE4 mods and savegames each turn. As well as anything other miscellaneous documents and files.(They're good for thousands of erasings and rewritings.)

With that combination, I will feel safe.
Plus, I can wipe out viruses and system problems by formatting the C-drive, and dropping the Image back on without wrecking anything else.
The only things that I'd need to worry about would be my Favorites/shortcuts and my desktop files.

PS:
Oh, and given two different sized drives, I would use the smaller one for windows and try to leave a lot of free space on it. That will help with fragmentation, swapfile, and speed of access.

[ January 03, 2003, 17:12: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Wardad · #18 January 3rd, 2003, 11:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Thermodyne:

quote:
Originally posted by DarkHorse:

quote:
Originally posted by Thermodyne:
... And there is one very popular chipset in wide use that is becoming notorious for corrupting data written to the hard drive if default bios settings are used.

Which chipset are you referring to?
Sorry, I’m not rich and powerful enough to say that in a public forum. PM me.

I research my parts, on the WEB, before I buy them now. I am using an MSI brand motherboard. Their technology always seems to lag months behind other brands, but they are reliable, supported and documented.

There is a PC Club store near me. They carry good quality stuff. But I would still reasearch the stuff first.

I learned my lesson the hard way at a cheap outlet.
Example: TNT2 video card made by ARCADE. The first one did not work at all, the second kept crashing 3D programs. I spent hours trying different drivers. I gave up on it, returned it and got charged a restocking fee. I replaced it with a highly rated brand name and had no trouble after that.

-----------------------------------------------
You Get What You Pay For!
Really? Well, then I'll charge double. Bwahahahahaha

[ January 03, 2003, 22:01: Message edited by: Wardad ]

Wardad · #19 January 4th, 2003, 02:29 AM

SJ, You back up the registry?

I only backup my Malfador Machinations folder, the documents I create, and the few other things I download.

I worked with some techs who were dedicated gamers. They wiped their hard drive clean 3 times a year and started over with a fresh copy of Win95 (Win98 too?).
That's a little to much work for me. I'd hate to spend hours on-line updating winblows, directx, and norton security.

Gandalph · #20 January 4th, 2003, 03:14 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Wardad:
SJ, You back up the registry?

I only backup my Malfador Machinations folder, the documents I create, and the few other things I download.

I worked with some techs who were dedicated gamers. They wiped their hard drive clean 3 times a year and started over with a fresh copy of Win95 (Win98 too?).
That's a little to much work for me. I'd hate to spend hours on-line updating winblows, directx, and norton security.

Back when I used Win9x, I did the same thing but at 6 month intervals. Windows is a garbage collector and if you are constantly downloading, installing, uninstalling, testing demos, etc., it gets pretty bad pretty quick. It was much easier to just start fresh and, with the OEM push install disk, less time consuming then trying to solve the multiple problems created.