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New Hard Drive Questions

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xQuiKsiLveR

Senior member
I'm thinking about getting a new hard drive, the Maxtor 30 GB 7200 RPM, and I have a few questions. 1. Will this 7200 RPM drive be able to work to it's full ability on a Pentium 2 300 MHz Processer with 96 MB of RAM running Win 98? Or will I have to go with the 5400 RPM drive? Also, will there really be much of a difference between 5400 and 7200? 2. I don't have another expansion slot in my computer for another hard drive or any other device. Does this mean I can't get a new hard drive at all, because there wouldn't be another power cable or IDE cable to connect it to the computer with, and I was planning to transfer all my data from the old hard drive to the new one. Thanks in advance for all the help!
 
My $.02 🙂
If you're going to replace your old hard drive with the new one:
1.you can unplug your cdrw / or cd-rom to plug this new drive in it's place
2.for a little less heat,noise, & money, I'd probably stick with the 5400
the last one I installed was much quieter & faster than the 3yr old
drive I took out
3.When you're through copying, you can install the new drive where the
old one was
 
i would *highly* recommend a 7200RPM drive. It really makes a big differnce. Windows loads much more quickly and is just generally better. 7200 drives work in all systems. It's just you can onl;y run it at UDMA 33, rather that UDMA100 becuase your motherboard is too old.
 
ok thanks for the info...so you're saying that I should unplug either the CD-ROM or CD-RW and put the new HD in it's spot just to copy everything? What program does a good job of copying everything from one disk to another? I think either the CDROM or RW is slaved off of the old HD, so maybe I'll take out whichever one is slaved. When I copy all the data, which HD needs to be slaved and which needs to be the primary? ukDave - Are you sure my computer (Pentium 2 300 MHz, 96 MB RAM) can handle the 7200 RPM drive? Will I need more memory for this drive? Because my friend told me (who has been known to be wrong) that they had to do all this junk to their computer cuz it couldn't handle the 7200. ( I think they have about a 266 MHZ Pentium 2 machine.) Thanks.
 
The drive speed has NOTHING to do with the capabilities of the PC. You don't need to add more RAM, LOL, that has nothing to do with the drive either. The only "problem" is the new drive has ATA100 capability, and your mobo probably only has ATA33 ability. No biggy, the drive will just revert to ATA33. There is virtually NO difference between ATA33 and ATA100 really, not that you will likely notice. But definately go for the 7200 rpm drive, that's a no brainer.

It makes no difference what HDD you slave and master for copying. But I would prob set the new drive to Primary Master and the old drive to Primary Slave. Then you can just take out the old drive when you're done and be finished.

Norton Ghost is a great drive copy program, but I think Maxtors MaxBlast (FREE) will also do a drive copy. There is MANY FREE versions of Norton Ghost for DOS floating around on Soyo Mobo CD's, if you know anyone with a Soyo mobo. That's what I use.

PS - Tell your friend he need to spend some time on here learning about PC's. 😀
 
BadThad - Thanks a lot for your help! I have to save up some $, then I'm gonna go w/ the Maxtor 30 GB 7200 RPM...it's $110 (that includes shipping)..is that a good deal?
 
Method of Transferring Windows 9x to Another Drive

Set up the new drive as a slave or secondary master and make sure your computer?s BIOS properly detects it. Then partition the new drive and set its primary partition as active. Now format the new primary partition and add the system files in the process. (i.e.) FORMAT D: /s

Reboot into Windows and verify that the new D: drive has the system files on it.
- COMMAND.COM
- IO.SYS (hidden)
- MSDOS.SYS (hidden)

The xcopy32.exe program will be used to copy the files without losing their long file names. This method involves copying the files while running Windows. Click on the START button, and then select RUN. Once at the RUN prompt, the following command can be used to copy the entire contents of the C: drive to the new D: drive (substitute the drive letters that match your configuration, if different):

c:\windows\command\xcopy32 c:\*.* d: /h /c /e /k

After the copy process is complete, replace the ?msdos.sys? file on the d: drive with the one from the c: drive. This is necessary to insure that the boot process knows that Windows exists and how to load it.

XCOPY32 Parameters:
/h - copy hidden and system files
/c - continue if any errors occur *
/e - causes subdirectories, including empty ones, to be copied
/k - causes attributes to be copied intact.

* Note: A share violation error will happen when trying to copy WIN386.SWP but Windows will automatically build a new swap file on the first boot of the new drive.

Now you are ready to power down and swap the master/slave drive assignment. This is usually done with small jumper blocks on the drive itself. However, if the new drive was installed as a master on the secondary IDE port, then you only have to swap the ribbon cables.

Once complete, the new drive should boot into Windows and the old drive can be wiped clean or simply removed from the system.

Hope this helps, Oli
 
Olias - Very nice! That's basically how I used to do it. hehehehehe, I just hate to tell most people that method because it makes their heads spin, LOL. Sure was nice of you to spell it out so well. 🙂

Quik - I think that price is a bit high. Check out the Hot Deals forum, I think you will find a better deal.

Are you guys members of TeAm AnandTech yet? 😀
 
Olias - Thank you so much for all your help! I printed out your reply so I can use it when I transfer the data. One question though - What is partitioning? badthad - What is Team AnandTech?
 
<<One question though - What is partitioning?>>

Partitioning your new drive for is done with a DOS program called FDISK and is included with Win98. You can make one huge 30GB volume or divide it into two volumes 50/50. I would recommend 1/3 and 2/3 or 10 and 20GB. This is also where you will see an initial screen asking you about large disk support with a default answer of ?yes?. This is what M$ calls FAT32.

Good Luck, Oli
 
I was looking on this site on adding a second hard drive to a computer, and it seems like the way they describe it the software that comes with the HDD does the transferring of data for you. If this is true, do I need to use the other way that Olias provided? (I am buying the whole kit, not just the OEM version of the drive, so it should come with the software, right?) Also...I found a better deal at Staples.com for the HDD kit, it's $94 total...is that a better deal, or do you think I could find it even lower?
 
Quik - Click on the link to Team AnandTech in my sig! Please join us, we could use your help. Thanks for your interest!

Stop by the AT Distributed Computing Forum for even more info. We are the friendly AT forum! 🙂
 
I think you'll be alright, but when you say you're running a PII 300, I'm thinking older system. You'll need to go to the motherboard manufacturers website and see if you can find any information there concerning your current BIOS and any new releases. Especially as it relates to HD size.

Worse comes to worse, there should be a utility included on the disk with the new drive that will allow your drive to function at it's full capacity.

It would be preferable not to have to use this, but it will be fine if you do.

This should be an easily surmountable problem, if it's a problem at all.

 
Don't laugh at me, but I don't even know who makes my mobo, lol. I have an Acer computer, so should I just go to their website, or is there a way to find out what kind of mobo I have?
 
Pardon me for chipping in... a related question about transfering system from an old to new drive...I've been using the xcopy command to transfer old to new drives for a few years now on win9x. If I need to transfer a WinNT4.0 from an old to a new drive, this prolly doesn't work, right?

What prog would work with NT? 😕
 
So do I need to use the method that Olias said to transfer the data, or can I just use the software that came with the computer? I'm not going to be partitioning the new HD.
 
Badthad
<<but I think Maxtors MaxBlast (FREE) will also do a drive copy. >>

As the above gentleman said earlier, MaxBlast will do it all. I was just providing the XCOPY method as a viable alternative. You will get MaxBlast with a retail Maxtor drive plus its easy to use and will make all the drive space available if your BIOS can't do the drive geometry.
 
QuiK, all hard drives need a partition to work. If your drive comes allready partitioned (and I don't think they do...) great. If not, you will need to partition it before any data can be saved to it.
 
KBTibbs - Doesn't partitioning a drive divide it into sections and other drives? Cuz i don't think my drive now has any partitions.
 
If your drive is new, it is NOT partitioned and formatted, you have to do that. Partitioning does NOT mean you have to break it into pieces. But you must assign a SINGLE partition to it in order to use the drive.

Whatever drive you get, just read the documentation and use the supplied tools and you'll be fine Quik...stop worrying, LOL. 🙂
 
Yeah QuiK,
Listen to badthad,
Maxtor has a good instruction sheet with
their drive.
Read it carefully and you shouldn't have any problems.

OH,
and I like 7200 rpm drives better too.
I was just thinking you might be able to save $20.
They're getting so cheap now it doesn't make much difference.
I remember paying $200-$300 for a whopping 1.7gb a few years ago.
$320 for that wonderful 8mb 72pinn SIMM.
That gave me 12mb total! WOW😀
 
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