Basic disk install

[Craig234]

I have an old system with an SSD and an HD. Both are listed in control panel at ATA devices.

I remember from long ago disks could have things like IRQ settings needing configuration.

Control panel shows I have an IDE ATA/ATAPI controller.

What do I need to know to install new SSD and HD's, so I can copy the old to the new and replace them, in terms of physical connections?

Can I just look at the cables connecting the old ones for open slots and plug in the new? Any switches?

 

[Elixer]

You mean in device manager, you see IDE ATA/ATAPI controller?
That is normal, and it still shows that on SATA systems.

Since you have a SSD & HD already in there, most likely, they will be SATA, and NOT IDE.
It could be only SATA II instead of SATA III though.

You can just add the new hardware, and clone them over without issue 99% of the time.

 

[Craig234]

It's 8 year old stuff, so ya.

OK, I'll just look for empty ports on the cables to plug them in and cross my fingers.

 

[Carson Dyle]

"Empty ports on the cables"? Are either the SSD or hard drive IDE instead of SATA?

SATA devices should be one per cable. You would look for empty SATA ports on the motherboard, and would need additional SATA cables to attach additional devices.

 

[Craig234]

I don't know. There are two cables going into the drive, both are flat , not pins. One is a less wide red cable one jack per cable to the MB, the other wider with a few jacks per cable for power.

Here's where I am:

I plugged the new drive in. Since I had no extra red cables, I unplugged the one attached to the DVD-RW drive and used it (after transferring data I'll remove the old drive).

My system sees the new drive in control panel - it lists the device name under drives. But the drive isn't recognized by the OS (i.e., F: gets 'drive not found'.)

I'm assuming that's because it need to be formatted, but would like to feel more comfortable before I run around typing format commands, and also need the correct format command to use to format a 3TB drive on Windows 10. How can I confirm the command is the right one (that F: is the right designation) and what the right format command is?

C: and E: are currently recognized, as the boot SSD and the hard drive. D: which is normally the DVD-RW is not found nor is F:. Since I moved the cable, I'm not sure if the new drive is D: or F:. Somehow the OS knows the HD is still E: and didn't change it to D:.

 

[Craig234]

Need to partition the drive - trying to think of any reason not to just make it one big 3tb partition.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I don't know. There are two cables going into the drive, both are flat , not pins. One is a less wide red cable one jack per cable to the MB, the other wider with a few jacks per cable for power.

SATA

Moving the cables between drives won't change their drive letters in Windows. Also, the new drive doesn't have a drive letter yet. You have to format it first and assign it a drive letter. Just don't use a drive letter that's already in use. You can make it anything else you like, and you can easily change it to E: after you've removed the old hard drive (if that's your plan).

You don't need to type in commands to format a drive in Windows - you can do it through the GUI. I'm not running Windows 10, but you can easily google it and find hundreds of guides.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Need to partition the drive - trying to think of any reason not to just make it one big 3gb partition.

Typically, there isn't much reason to do so for a data disk.

 

[UsandThem]

You don't need to type in commands to format a drive in Windows - you can do it through the GUI. I'm not running Windows 10, but you can easily google it and find hundreds of guides.

In Windows 10, when you have an unformatted hard drive and open Disk Management, it will prompt you to format it (GPT or MBR), and then ask if you want to assign a drive letter.

This guide will show the OP how to do it.

https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=1284#win10

 

[Craig234]

Formatting one 3TB partition now. About 20 minutes, on 3%. Next up is reading the info above about data transfer. Hoping Steam won't have any problem recognizing the games.

 

[Ranulf]

The newest version of Steam (maybe its still the beta one) will let you move games from different install directories/drives. Its an option when you right click said game in your list under properties and local files tab, the "move install folder" button. That is pretty slow though for each game you have.

Sounds like you're just going to clone the data from the old hard drive to the new 3tb, there are several programs out there to do the job. My preferred is the Macrium Reflect (free version should do it).

 

[Craig234]

Ya, I guess there are 'sector copies' and 'file copies' and I'm thinking just do a file copy - I'm just hoping after doing that and removing the old drive, that Steam recognizes the programs as
installed on the new drive. It's still formatting, about 10 hours I estimate to finish. Oh, and it's going from a 1TB (that used to be huge) to a 3TB drive.

 

[Carson Dyle]

For a non-system disk, just copy the files over. No need to get more complicated. Some programs may be faster, but you can do it in Windows Explorer.

If your motherboard has another SATA header and you can buy/find another SATA data cable, there's no reason to remove the old drive. If you wan the new drive to be E, then in Disk Management you could just change its drive letter to something unused like H, then change the new disk to E, change the old one to whatever new letter you want.

What I like to do with drive lettering is move optical drives out of the way - to something like Z (also done in Disk Management), then have data hard drives of D, E, F, etc. Probably an OCD thing.

 

[Carson Dyle]

(duplicate)

 

[Craig234]

For a non-system disk, just copy the files over. No need to get more complicated. Some programs may be faster, but you can do it in Windows Explorer.

If your motherboard has another SATA header and you can buy/find another SATA data cable, there's no reason to remove the old drive. If you wan the new drive to be E, then in Disk Management you could just change its drive letter to something unused like H, then change the new disk to E, change the old one to whatever new letter you want.

What I like to do with drive lettering is move optical drives out of the way - to something like Z (also done in Disk Management), then have data hard drives of D, E, F, etc. Probably an OCD thing.

I'm planning to remove the old drive for three reasons - it's already going bad, why destroy it more by running it while not using it; the possibility that having a bad drive like that in the system might cause some delays on some activities; and to save that little bit of power not needed.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Bad, how? If it really is bad, yeah, no reason to keep it. If it just has a couple of SMART errors, you could still use it for things like backing up files from the other drives (although it wouldn't be wise to have that as your only backup). I wouldn't expect it to cause any delays, other than maybe if you allow it to spin down and then accidentally click the drive in Explorer.

 

[Craig234]

Well, some disk program keeps popping up a window saying 'disk failure' and bad sectors, and when I boot the PC the bios requires me to press F1 because of the disk (though it's not the boot drive), though it still works. Sort of pack ratty, I expect I'll just keep the drive stored somewhere. Like several old PC's. Never know when I'll want a 3.1 Windows again.

 

[Craig234]

That drive is 8 years old and has been powered on 24/7 nearly all of that.

The cloning has gone from about 38 minutes so far, 38 minutes remaining to 1 hour 10 min so far, 1 hour 16 min remaining.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Yeah, sounds like it's very near death. Have you run a utility on it yet to see the actual SMART errors? CrystalDiskInfo, HD Tune, Hard Disk Sentinel should all work. If the drive is that bad, I wouldn't save it for any possible future use. Destroy it if it has any sensitive info on it, then recycle it.

 

[Craig234]

This cloning isn't getting anywhere. Now it's at 4:11 processed, 3:43 remaining.

 

[Craig234]

Ya, this is crazy. It doesn't seem to be moving after about halfway, despite disk activity, now 5:15 done and 4:40 to go.

I'm having to think about cancelling this and trying something else.

 

[Carson Dyle]

What exactly are you doing? Did you just drag and drop the directories and files, or something else?

 

[Craig234]

What exactly are you doing? Did you just drag and drop the directories and files, or something else?

I'm running the clone function of 'EaseUS todo home backup' recommended in another thread, with the 'sector copy' option not selected.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I wouldn't expect it to cause any delays

You would be surprised. Windows' likes to "pause" (sometimes apps get a "white screen"), when SATA ports don't respond right away. Even for non-OS drives, if they're going south, they can affect your day-to-day Windows' usage, even when you're not directly accessing that particular drive. I've seen it happen.

 

[Craig234]

I cancelled it. I'm wondering if it got hung on a bad sector and I need to chkdsk or something to fix it. I'll try the Macrium recommended above now.