Hard drive problem

[jx2mad]

My hard drive appears to be on the way out. I have no problem in installing a new drive and setting up master and slave configuration. What happens next is my worry. I have to reinstall my operating system (XP), BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MYRIADS OF UPGRADES. Also do I have to reinstall all other programs from scratch or can I copy them across. I know I can copy files ok. Any suggestions before my hard disc crashes. Jim

[jx2mad]

Hasn't anyone got any suggestions?

[abaddonxi]

XP should have a compendium upgrade in one upgrade package. You can make up your own single install disk, but probably more time and hassle than just running update.

If you are doing a clean install you will need to reinstall all software.

You could run a hard disk clone program and then copy the entire disk to the new hdd, but if it's been a while since you done a clean install you'll probably be better off starting from scratch.

[incisor]

plenty of open source drive imaging software out there..

Clonezilla - About (http://clonezilla.org/)

is one of many that works quite nicely

[pfillery]

Ever considered it may be software faults causing the problem, hence if you copy software across you may bring errors with you.

I'd be doing a clean install, back up your files, reinstall your programmes from original discs and then log on to the web to let microsoft do its update automatically. If it is an older (SP2) version it will be a big upgrade of around 130 or 140 files but well worth the couple of hours to get a clean install.

[spudboy]

If your harware will cope - why not take this as a chance to update to Win7?

We skipped Vista completely but Win7 has been really stable.

If you stick with XP, just do a Windows Update from Internet Explorer and go out for the afternoon :)

Cheers
David


Edit - I very much agree with pfillery - do a clean install.....

[jx2mad]

Hey Spudboy. I bit the bullet and installed a new 1TB SATA drive. Unlike the old drives there is no links for setting up master/slave . I presume that the outputs on the mother board marked sata 1, sata 2 will automatically set this up (am I right?). I connected the new drive to SATA 1and shifted the cable from the old drive to sata 2. The machine still boots off the old drive. However now it is installed the computer cannot find the new drive. I have been into "setup" but how do you tell the machine you have installed a second drive? Jim

[spudboy]

IF you boot to the BIOS screen (Press DEL maybe when booting) can you see the new drive there? There will be a boot sequence area, and you should see 2 drives there.

If your old drives were PATA (ie parallel, the old style of drive) and the new drive is the first SATA drive you may have to turn on SATA for the motherboard (although it sounds like you already had one SATA drive previously).

If you can't see it in the BIOS area Windows will never see it, so that's the first thing to solve.

Edit - You don't have to worry about Master/Slave with SATA. That is only on the older Parallel drives, where it could be a HDD jumper setting, or via the Cable (if set to Cable select on the HDD).

[jx2mad]

Hi Spudboy. I can only see 1 drive in bios. I had a computer tech here a few weeks ago because I was running 2 hard drives. The second drive was faulty and he disabled it but I am not sure what he did in bios. Now I want a new C drive and my old drive as D.

[jx2mad]

My computer should automatically find my new SATA drive but it doesn't. Any suggestions? Cable is ok, SATA drive input to mother board is ok, just doesn't show up anywhere. Jim

[Ferret]

Given its size, your new drive is most probably sata II. Does your mother board support sata II or just sata I. Consult your motherboard documentation.

Sata II is backward compatible with sata 1 so should still work but at sata I transfer speeds. It reconfigures itself to run at a slower speed via auto detection. However, some motherboards may not support auto detection and you may have to ensure the sata II drive is forced into working at sata I speeds by setting a jumper on the back of the drive. Consult your drive documentation.


Just a thought.

[jx2mad]

Hi Ferret! The drive has the following information re jumpers on it. 1 & 2 is spread spectrum clocking, 3 & 4 is power up in standby, 5 & 6 enables 1.56gb PHY whatever that is. Are any of these the right ones to slow it down? Jim

[Ferret]

If you jumper 5 & 6 you will force your drive into sata I mode, 1.5 GB/sec rather than the default 3.0 GB/sec of sata II

But like I said, check your motherboard first - the sata controller on your motherboard may support sata II, in which case I doubt the drive jumper setting is your problem.

[jx2mad]

Thanks Ferret. The link works. Now to find how to format the drive. How can I change over C and D drive, just rename them?