New Hard Drive - Installation Question

[peeler_feeler]

Just purchased an 80Gig Western Digital to install into my PIII-600 Dell computer which currently has a 10Gig hard drive. I'm currently running W98 SE but want to move to XP Pro.

What is the preferred method of installation? - the new drive as the Primary Drive or the new drive as the secondary drive. I get various opinions from friends and "wannabe" computer geeks. Some think the larger drive should be the primary drive, but could not give me the reasoning behind it.

Any technical terbites with some insight?? Thanks

 

[canucklehead]

i would make the WD the master and the other a slave and use it either as dual boot Linux or something or as a backup drive.

 

[XoticDancee]

If you are planning on wiping out 98 and starting over with XP then I would suggest you make the 80GB drive the master and install the O/S on that. It is probably faster than the 10GB drive, so your system performance (especially during startup) may improve slightly.

If you are planning on keeping 98 and dual-booting with XP, or upgrading the 98 installation to XP, then you have to leave the 10GB drive as master. The O/S must be installed on the master drive.

 

[Kassidy]

P.F: I am going thru the same process currently of installing a new HD, and I agree with you wanna be tech friends (cause i have asked a lot of REAL tech friends) . If you are installing a new OS you will want to make the new drive the Master drive. The way I was told to do it is as follows:

1> Install new drive as Master and remove old drive, install your new OS.
2> Turn off computer, reinstall old drive as slave drive.
3> Copy all the files you NEED from the old drive (music, word docs etc. you can not transfer programs)
4> Format the old drive to remove the OS this will wipe the old drive which is why you need to transfer the important stuff before this step.
5> Reinstall all programs onto the new drive from their disks or from downloads (depending on program).
6> Enjoy!

P.S: I (being one of those non-techie people) will be letting someone else have the honours of doing this all for me. Although I can handle the drive installation on my own, as I have done it before, hate dealing with software, so I decided to defer it to the experts.

Hope this helps
Kisses
Emma

 

[papasmerf]

Emma22 is correct

Plus the new drive is faster

 

[tboy]

The only flaw to emma's installation is that you must have all the installation programs for the software you are currently running. If for some reason (not like you'd EVER download a program illegally) don't have the discs i'd leave your current drive as the master.

There are shareware applications (I don't know if windows has it) that are called "application migration" that will move all the application files to another drive. This way you could move all your apps to the new drive after installing XP

WARNING DANGER WILL ROBINSON Some applications do NOT run on XP and you may have to run a dual OS system (using WIN98 and XP on the same machine). If you load XP and choose not to create a dual OS system, you will have to uninstall XP and reinstall WIN98.

If I were you I would run WIN98 on the 10 GB drive, load XP onto the new 80 GB drive and then migrate all your apps over to XP leaving any apps that don't run on XP, on the WIN98 drive.

BTW win XP does have an application option that is supposed to allow an app that won't run on XP to run on XP using win98 protocols but I tried that with mine and it didn't work. I'm talking about older versions of 3D Studio, Adobe Illustrator to name 2.

 

[Sakk]

Do you plan on saving a lot of movies or music? I use a 20 gig for my operating system and have a 120 gig for storage. that way if I have to format due to a virus I don't lose my saved files. (I've already wiped my operating system) my 20 gig is a 5400 rpm and it's plenty fast. my 120 is a SATA drive. Win XP Pro.

 

[tboy]

Good point Sakk, I have a 20 GB for my OS etc and a 60 for what I call my "storage" files. Maybe buddy should be thinking of this too......

 

[peeler_feeler]

WARNING DANGER WILL ROBINSON Some applications do NOT run on XP and you may have to run a dual OS system (using WIN98 and XP on the same machine). If you load XP and choose not to create a dual OS system, you will have to uninstall XP and reinstall WIN98.

If I were you I would run WIN98 on the 10 GB drive, load XP onto the new 80 GB drive and then migrate all your apps over to XP leaving any apps that don't run on XP, on the WIN98 drive.

So I can keep the OS as is for now on the 10GB drive with WIN98 and intsall the 80GB drive as the Slave drive? Then after installation of the hard drive I can load XP onto the new 80GB drive as the slave drive. Does not the OS have to reside on the Master Drive?? Can I have two operating systems on different drive??

 

[xix]

So I can keep the OS as is for now on the 10GB drive with WIN98 and intsall the 80GB drive as the Slave drive? Then after installation of the hard drive I can load XP onto the new 80GB drive as the slave drive. Does not the OS have to reside on the Master Drive?? Can I have two operating systems on different drive??

I think they meant or I would do is.. XP on new drive as master with dual boot installed. While W98 on 10 gig as slave installed, while installing XP so it can detect W98.
Also I would partition the 80GB. For XP 20 gigs and the rest 60gig for programs and what ever.

BEWARE. this happen to me when I was forced to install a new 80 gig HD. My 20 gig died... so my ASUS Mb wouldn't accept the new 80gig so I had to d/l a bios upgrade from ASUS for the MB. Actualy my friend did it for me. I would do that first, install the new bios make sure it works with old HD then install new HD.

good luck.

 

[Mufflicker]

Since nobody has said it yey you need to backup any file that are important to you. Everything should be alright, BUT!! who knows better safe than sorry

 

[peeler_feeler]

Thanks for the information guys/gals. I guess I'll make the 80gig the primary or master dirve as suggested.

 

[hot rod]

I am also loking at installing a larger drive on an older PIII (450) system and I have had several people tell me that there is a "Maximum" size that these older motherboards will recognize, and that drives larger than this theoretical maximum either won't be recognized at all or will only be able to use up to that max and anything beyond it will be invisible.

Is there any truth to this, and if so, what is the max? Does it matter if the new drive replaces the old one or is installed in addition to the old one? If there is indeed a maximum can it be overridden, perhaps with a BIOS flash or something like that?

I currently have a 30 and am looking at adding either an 80 or a 120.

TIA for your input.

 

[papasmerf]

Older BIOS will only reconize to their limits. However you can normally upgrade the BIOS by FLASHING it or replacing the PROM. Check with your BIOS creator.

Also I had encountered this with an older computer while installing a larger drive. Using the WESTERN DIGITAL software that came with the drive, I ended up with several LOCICAL drives @ 1 gig each.

You may also consider going with an external USB drive. You can maintain you current drive and have portiblity for future upgrades.

 

[tboy]

The hard drive manufacturers also provide software called "overlays" and what that does is write data to your bios fooling into thinking it can handle the larger drives.

I had to use one for my 20 gb fujitsu drive but if you go to your drive's website, I am sure they will have one too. Its a bit of a pain but it works.

I have a question tho: why don't you just upgrade your case, motherboard and processor? I mean for around 275 you can do it with a celeron processor then when you're ready, you can upgrade the processor?

 

[Kassidy]

hot rod: also you get your motherboard make and model and check online for what the specs are for it. that way you will know exactly what the system limitations are.

kisses
Emma

 

[XoticDancee]

So I can keep the OS as is for now on the 10GB drive with WIN98 and intsall the 80GB drive as the Slave drive? Then after installation of the hard drive I can load XP onto the new 80GB drive as the slave drive. Does not the OS have to reside on the Master Drive?? Can I have two operating systems on different drive??

Yes, if you want to keep 98 then this is the way you should do it. The second OS can be installed on the slave drive, and the XP installation program will put a boot loader in the master boot record of the master drive so that you can choose which OS you want to boot when you start up.

Do a Google search on dual boot and you will find a ton of info.

 

[XoticDancee]

I am also loking at installing a larger drive on an older PIII (450) system and I have had several people tell me that there is a "Maximum" size that these older motherboards will recognize, and that drives larger than this theoretical maximum either won't be recognized at all or will only be able to use up to that max and anything beyond it will be invisible.

Is there any truth to this, and if so, what is the max? Does it matter if the new drive replaces the old one or is installed in addition to the old one? If there is indeed a maximum can it be overridden, perhaps with a BIOS flash or something like that?

I currently have a 30 and am looking at adding either an 80 or a 120.

TIA for your input.

If your motherboard doesn't recognize the larger drive you can always add a new controller card to your machine that supports larger drives. I've used a controller from Promise that works well. They're usually about $60 at most computer stores.

http://www.promise.com/product/product_detail_eng.asp?productId=11&familyId=3

 

[canucklehead]

Hmmmm on my mac i just put a drive and then format either as slave or master...and i can boot from either one??? Well at least in OSX. I have Yellow Dog Linux installed on one partition on my salve disc and it boots and also have Gentoo for PPC on another partition on the same drive installed.
At work i had to install a newer drive on a P3 450 and the drives filly capacity was not recognized till i partitioned it into small enough sectors 2 X 80 gigs and one 36 or so gigs.
Ok this pisses me off a 200 gig drive only holds 189 gigs