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Post by Hucklebubba on Jun 24, 2008 21:43:06 GMT -5
Okay, so here's the skinny:
I'm planning on swapping out my present 40 gig hard drive of unknown manufacture for a 320 gig Western Digital.
My plan for getting the data on the old hard drive onto the new is as follows: Set my current hard drive and the WD up in a master/slave configuration, format the WD and move everything onto it, shut down, remove old hard drive and toss over shoulder to the accompaniment of a cartoony sound effect (put in storage, I mean), set the WD up as the new sheriff in town, live happily ever after.
You may be wondering at this point where the question is. Well, it's just that the aforementioned plan of attack strikes me as so elegantly simple and do-able, I'm almost certain I've overlooked something. And I need someone geekier than myself to point it out for me.
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Post by bladestarr on Jun 24, 2008 22:17:24 GMT -5
As long as they are both IDE hard drives, and as long as you can get the proper jumper pin configuration to set up the master/slave relationship, it should would beautifully. Most of the time the master/slave jumpers are listed on the drive themselves. If you had a pre-built system, it may be MISSING, in which case you'll need to "borrow" a jumper from your local mom and pop computer store. Aside from that, make sure you set one to the master, one to the slave (doesn't matter which to be honest) and just COMPLETELY IGNORE "CS", or Cable Select... it's too buggy to be worth it, just set it yourself manually and you'll be fine.
EDIT: I should add that if you do plan to install an OPERATING SYSTEM on your new hard drive... be VERY careful when you perform the installation. Some options will completely wipe all pre-existing data. If you want to be completely safe, use a program like FDISK to set up a special 40GB partition on that hard drive to store the data, then use the rest of the space for your operating system.
Also.... if you have two drives, why would you want to throw one away?? Just use it as extra storage space!
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Post by Hucklebubba on Jun 25, 2008 1:44:40 GMT -5
EDIT: I should add that if you do plan to install an OPERATING SYSTEM on your new hard drive... be VERY careful when you perform the installation. Some options will completely wipe all pre-existing data. If you want to be completely safe, use a program like FDISK to set up a special 40GB partition on that hard drive to store the data, then use the rest of the space for your operating system. Aye, there's the rub. When I said I wanted move the data on the old hard drive to the WD, I meant operating system and all. Am I to assume--as I kind of already have been--that this scenario is too hassle-free to be viable in real life? Also.... if you have two drives, why would you want to throw one away?? Just use it as extra storage space! I would like nothing better, but I'm afraid heat would be an issue. You see, my computer is unavoidably ensconced in the hottest room in the house, and it just so happens that we're getting into the part of the year when Missouri becomes not unlike a giant armpit. My current case fan is merely adequate for cooling one hard drive; I doubt it could handle that plus a second drive that apparently has something of a reputation for running a tad toasty (that was a common minor nag in the reviews I read of this particular WD). Plus, the WD has a larger cache and higher RPM than my present hard drive. I don't know if those differences would cause problems during tandem operation, but it seems like they ought to. |
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Post by PoolMan on Jun 25, 2008 8:55:42 GMT -5
The OS (assuming we're talking some form of Windows, here) will not simply transfer over in the manner you're suggesting. You need to install the OS on the new HD (cleanest if you don't even have the original HD plugged in), then do the Master/Slave file transfer stuff. Should be fine!
Good luck with your armpitty environment!
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Post by bladestarr on Jun 25, 2008 9:43:57 GMT -5
Yeah, what Pooly said. The simple explanation is that Windows uses a unique "hardware ID" when it is installed, and if you try to start up the OS on a different hard drive that doesn't match the "hardware ID" of the original, it simply won't work. It will lock up and you'll get the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) every time.
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Rett Mikhal
Ghostbuster
Shorten your stream, I don't want my face burned off!
Posts: 377
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Post by Rett Mikhal on Jun 25, 2008 10:03:25 GMT -5
Invest in some copper and make a heat sink. You took heat transfer in physics, didn't you? The gradient, man! THE GRADIENT!
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Post by bladestarr on Jun 25, 2008 10:35:27 GMT -5
People may notice that their Hard Drives get hot. But in my 13 years of working in PC tech support, I've NEVER heard of a hard drive failing because of heat. Memory, processor, motherboards, sure... but hard drives are TOUGH stuff. Don't worry about them overheating to be honest. Worry more about your CPU. Those numbers mean nothing in how the drives work with each other. They are both limited by the speed of the EIDE cable. Click here for more tech info on the IDE interface.Just know that if one hard drive is "faster" than the other one... then the faster hard drive WILL "wait" for the other one to catch up. It's called cyclical redundancy checks, and it's one of the greatest ideas ever thought up. It makes sure that data is the same at the destination as it was at the source, no matter what. |
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Post by Hucklebubba on Jun 25, 2008 22:58:48 GMT -5
Thanks for the advice, all!
I'm planning on giving it the old college try (which is actually a terribly ominous expression for me to use), shortly after I log off of here. So, if I don't post anymore, you'll know why.
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Post by Hucklebubba on Jun 26, 2008 0:00:57 GMT -5
On second thought. . . The game has been postponed due to wrong type of IDE cable-having (two connectors vs. the necessary three). However, I was able to confirm that my present hard drive does indeed have a jumper shunt, so hurray about that. Invest in some copper and make a heat sink. You took heat transfer in physics, didn't you? The gradient, man! THE GRADIENT! Actually, this brings up another question: One of the other fruits of my little upgrade-spree is a new graphics card, 90% of the surface area of which is heatsink. However, I've noticed that, as with the last card, the heatsink points downward. Now, my entire understanding of thermodynamics can be summed up in the phrase "heat rises." Armed with such dizzying expertise, it seems to me that a downward-oriented heatsink is to some degree, shall we say, spitting against the wind? |
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Post by PoolMan on Jun 26, 2008 12:02:44 GMT -5
People may notice that their Hard Drives get hot. But in my 13 years of working in PC tech support, I've NEVER heard of a hard drive failing because of heat. Memory, processor, motherboards, sure... but hard drives are TOUGH stuff. Don't worry about them overheating to be honest. Worry more about your CPU. I agree that you need to worry far more about the CPU, but HD failures are on the rise as storage capacity goes up. Maybe it's not directly heat related, but as the day of the 300GB+ HD is more and more common, so too are the failures of these magnificent beasts. it seems to me that a downward-oriented heatsink is to some degree, shall we say, spitting against the wind? Well... not really. The concept of the heatsink is twofold. You radiate heat into space (which will happen regardless of orientation, but is not a huge heat relief), and you have air-surface cooling. The efficiency of the air cooling funtion is determined mostly by the surface area of the heatsink itself... which is why it's a series of copper (or aluminum) ridges instead of a block shape. You have air contacting a larger surface, and absorbing more heat. Your observation about the upside down thing is valid, but nothing to worry about. The fans in your case (you DO have fans, correct?) will move the air around more than enough to make sure you don't have a pool of hot air that never leaves the area. You'll be fine. |
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Post by Hucklebubba on Jul 6, 2008 1:33:53 GMT -5
Success!!
By which I mean; Compromise!
By which I mean; A tremendous pain in the ass!
Anyway, my new 320 gig WD is all hooked up, and everything's a-hummin'. And the only thing I had to give up in the process was all of the data on my old hard drive.
Sigh.
Long story short; Either the cloning software that came with the new hard drive is crap, or I'm an idiot. Whatever the case, not only did my old stuff not copy correctly, but in the process of failing utterly, Data Lifeguard also let out a tremendous fart of evil that ganked up Windows on my old HD.
So, I simply said "Oh, dash it all," (not my exact words) and did a clean install on the new HD.
On the bright side, I should still be able to salvage what I need from the old drive (I've already plucked out a couple of necessary drivers), and I'm also pretty happy about never having to uninstall things to make room ever again.
All in all, not a total disaster. But definitely something I would've thought twice about even doing had I known what it would entail.
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Post by bladestarr on Jul 6, 2008 9:46:37 GMT -5
Never say never.
You WILL still need more disk space.
It's just a matter of time. ;D
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