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General discussion

Adding hard drive (hookup recommendations)

Apr 14, 2006 2:19AM PDT

I am about to:

1. Add a 120 GB hard drive.
2. Replace a CD-ROM with a DVD reader.

I have a Win98se system with a 20 GB harddrive that is to remain as the primary since I don't want to re-install the OS. I will probably partition the 120 GB drive. My 20 GB has less than 1 GB free now and I want to move some stuff off it to another drive, clean out what I don't want, then defrag it (it's getting kinda' slow).

Here are the caveats:

1. It appears I need the DVD, which I am about to replace my CD-ROM with, to stay as drive D, due to the fact that I have at least one older game I want to be able to play that seems to require the CD to be in the D: drive. (I tried running it from the E: (cd writer) drive and it attempted to start but then told me it was looking for files in the D: drive. I posted a question on a forum for tech support for this game (user supported, since it is an older game) and after two days have had no response).

2. When I installed the CD writer the documentation advised whether it should be on the primary IDE or secondary IDE and the master/slave setting for optimum timing for burning CD's. I don't recall which it was and won't know until I open the case again. I know I can check this in device manager but I am away from that PC at the moment.

Basically I would like any recommendations as to:

1. Forcing the new drive start with F:, since the optical drives seem to need to stay as D: and E:. I know I can specifically set them in Device Manager, Properties, but will this then force the new drive to skip those letters?

2. What size and how many partitions for the new hard drive do you recommend? I realize this can depend on what I want to use it for but I have seen some info that says only use multiple partitions if you want to have multiple OSs and sometimes to separate data from the OS partition. I intend to have at least one partition to Ghost my 20 GB HD as a backup, based on recommendations at the Radified Guides site http://radified.com/index2.html and put lesser used items but ones I still want on HD in another partition. I wanted to get some other input apart from that website just to broaden my perspective.

3. Where to locate each device, for example, should the second hard drive be on IDE2 or on IDE1 with the primary HD? I have been told that location can affect the drive letter assignment. Also suggestions on if you think it matters where the cd-writer is.

4. Any other relevent issues I should be considering.

Thanks in advance, I eagerly await your wisdom.

Discussion is locked

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A few notes.
Apr 14, 2006 2:43AM PDT

In http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=282530 Microsoft writes "it may be useful to configure your computer so that drive letters are less likely to change after you add a new hard disk or CD-ROM."

The key words here are "less likely." Microsoft apparently never supplied a means to assign drive letters and make them stick.

To fix your software that looks at a specific drive, I find that after all the changes and letter assignments that I can uninstall and reinstall and the software will use the new letter.

Be sure to get the updated FDISK from http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=263044 titled "Fdisk Does Not Recognize Full Size of Hard Disks Larger than 64 GB"

The placement of what drive where was for very old hardware. Today's machines are not as sensitive to have to move drives about like this.

Best of luck,

Bob

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FDISK vs. manufacturer's utility
Apr 14, 2006 3:36AM PDT

The installation instructions for the new HD recommend using their setup utility on the CD instead of using FDISK. So should I go with that or should I use the updated MS one?

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Outside of...
Apr 14, 2006 5:52AM PDT

The maker's disk copy program I've never used their setup utility. I wonder why I would use that when I can go native.

Bob

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What happened next
Jun 2, 2006 4:48AM PDT

What I did initially was FDISK the new hd, creating one 20M primary partition and four 25M logical drives in an extended partition. When I tried to format the logical drives it would count up to 100% but then it tried to do something with checking free space and it would stop with a message that I believe was bad FAT. (I realize I should have written it down but I didn't) I formatted two of the logical drives like this, then booted into Windows and formatted the other two from within windows. Then I ran Norton Disk Doctor on all of them to make sure they looked OK, and they all checked out.

I then tried to use Norton Ghost to image the original HD partition, which I was going to then restore to the primary partition on the new HD. I tried it this way to gain practice with Ghost, which I was planning to then use for backup purposes later. I never did get this to work and was getting tired of fooling with it so I ended up starting over and repartitioning / reformatting using the Maxblast software. The formatting seemed to go a lot faster this time. I've since had to have Norton Disk Doctor fix the boot record on all four of the logical drives and have had 3 of the 4 logical drives drop out from the ''My Computer'' screen, requiring a reboot to get them back. (At the time they were not showing on My Computer they were still showing in Norton Disk Doctor.

So at this point I don't know if I would have been better off trying the ''clone drive'' option of Ghost rather than the image and restore, or even leaving my original partitioning/formatting and using MaxBlast to copy the old drive rather than doing it all with Maxtor's utility.

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Performance impact with placement?
May 1, 2006 4:51AM PDT

I still haven't had time to get this done, and have come up with another question in the meantime.

Are there any performance issues related to placement of IDE drives? For example, with two hard drives and two optical drives, is there any performance impact from having both HDs on the same IDE channel and both optical drives on the other IDE channel (as opposed to one HD and one optical on each IDE channel)?

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two channels, four drives
May 1, 2006 6:53AM PDT

If you have two IDE channels on the motherboard, then install the two hard drives on one channel and the two optical drives on the other. Faster hard drive should have operating system and be a primary master.

Article: ''Step-By-Step: Get Maximum Speed From Your New Drives''

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You've provided the perfect reason
Apr 14, 2006 1:21PM PDT

to assign CDs and DVDs to drive letters starting way down the alphabet as soon as you install the OS. Thereafter you don't have to worry about the CD and DVD drive letter getting bumped and adversely affecting progranms looking for CDs at specific drive letters when you install another hard drive. Drive "R" is where I start with CDs or DVDs...next S and so on. Same with FLASH Drives...mine takes 4 drive letters to I assigned them W, X, Y and Z.

Re maintaining the drive letters status quo...I really recommend the approach above if any way possible especially for Win9X. If that cannot work for you...TweakUI might help. Believe it will allow you to block assignment of drive letters which may force hard drive to drive letters further down the alphabet. Probably need to set the new drive up as an extended partition with whatever number of logical partition you want to make... if you make it a primary active, it could harder to keep it from assigning it to "D:"

Hope this helps.

VAPCMD

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Thanks
Apr 17, 2006 12:25AM PDT

I was planning the new drive as additional storage, so don't need a primary partition on it. Looks like that is the way to go. Will post the results once I get it done. [ Was waiting until we finished up taxes Happy ]

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Good thinking....tax time is not the best time to
Apr 17, 2006 8:14AM PDT

reconfigure your PC. You know the old addage....whatever can happen will !

Good Luck

VAPCMD