Hard drive surprises

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

WROTE BY Slotness_Monster

Hello trusted  forum friends.
I recently swapped out my working hard drive for a larger one. Everything with the new drive works just fine (knock on wood).
Now I would like to start reading the data on my old drive, which is still out of the machine.
Other that the standard slave set-up, what else should I look out for?
If it matters, my BIOS has an auto-detect feature.

Thanks for any 'heads-up',
'da Monster

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

WROTE BY Jay

I think you are good but it depends on what you want to accomplish....

Typically speaking if you get a new drive and load a fresh operating system you are in the best shape. This is because your registry is not oversized and polluted. I have seen people say they need a new computer because theirs is sooo slow. Generally speaking their registry has just gotten huge and the amount of RAM is insufficent to hold all the registry stuff (yes good old Microsoft re-reads the whole stinking thing into RAM everytime you start a new program - this includes use of printers and other system service functions that startup). This is why spyware and adware is so bad. Not only does it make your system slow because it runs all sorts of stuff but even after you remove it your registry never shrinks in size. If you want to keep your system peppy wipe it once a year.

The down side of this is that you need to install all your programs again. Slaving the drive like you have then allows you to pull all of your data over.

When we want to upgrade a system to a larger drive at the office. We Ghost the machine (Check out Symantecs site - this is by Norton).
This tool allows you to take an image of your hard drive then reload it on a new drive. The new (larger) drive then behaves exactly the same.

The only down fall of this is you need to have space to write out the Image and it can't be on the new drive that you just bought. So you either need room on your old hard drive or some kind of external USB drive. We typically put the image on a DVD - RW

If you have the patience - What I really suggest doing is to start with a fresh OS, reload all of your programs - then ghost the machine. This way you can bring it back to a pristene state (less your data) anytime you want.

Dell also has a program that comes as a 19.99 option with a new computer. It uses a USB cable and it clones your computer settings. Its pretty good. It even remembers your Solitare stats. This won't help you with a new drive but thought I would mention it anyways,.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

WROTE BY Cactusjack

Just as a waring so you don't waste too much of your time:

I have had issues when mixing brands of drives as slaves and masters.  Especially when one is really old, and the other brand new. Sometimes, even though you have both drives set so the jumpers are the way you want (master and slave) one of the drives may not be "visable" to the OS. Even though they both work fine when they are the only drive on the cable.  If this happens, it may be necessary to place the other hard drive on the secondary IDE port (the one the other HD is not attacted to).  To do this, you may need to temporarily remove one of your CD drives if you have two hooked up in the machine.  But again, another caution:  I have lost CD access before with Win98 when doing such an upsizing drive swap.

CJ

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

WROTE BY idesign

I presume you have a second drive bay to install the old drive in.  Since you have it set up for auto detect make sure the drive is not set for something else.  Also, you will have to set the BIOS for the second drive to be recognized.  Once you do that you should be set to go.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

WROTE BY dnwheeler (Unregistered member)

To get the data off the old hard drive, it would probably be easier to just get an external USB 2.0 hard drive case. That way you don't have to worry about the BIOS, masters, slaves, or anything. Just plug it in, copy off the data, then unplug it. You can keep the old drive as a portable external drive, too.

--Doug

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

WROTE BY deadbus (Unregistered member)

You know that those Hard Drive platters in broken HDD make excellent coasters.  They alst longer than those AO* cd's I get in the mail.  Just my $.02

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

WROTE BY channelmaniac

The magnets are great too! Just be careful you don't get pinched between two of 'em. You'll get a nasty blood blister.

They are a lot of fun - put one on the fridge and laugh as your spouse or kid tries to remove it.

Another use is magnetizing a couple of screwdrivers to help with keeping screws on the tip when digging inside cabinets.

And... you can stick 'em on the end of a long metal rod to reach down inside a deep place to pick up the screw you just dropped.

All that and you can still slice a tomato! Well, maybe not...

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

WROTE BY pmcculey (Unregistered member)

A usb external case is great if you have more than 1 computer, but there is nothing wrong with just setting the old drive up as a slave with your new drive.

Joe