Topic: New computer assembly with old hard drives (Read 17844 times)

E_Look · « **on:** April 07, 2004, 02:23:13 pm »

Knowledgeable Ladies and Gentlemen of Taldrenland,

I am building a computer for my kid, but I want to use the old hard drives from his old system. There are two, an old WD 15 Gb HD, and a newer Maxtor 40 Gb HD.

I'm not sure if I'm going to use both or just the 40 Gb one.

Is there anything I should know about using an old one instead of new one or should I just bite the bullet and get a new one (as I do understand how to do that!)?

Khalee · « **Reply #1 on:** April 07, 2004, 02:26:07 pm »

If it still works properly and is compatable with the system then no, should not be aby problems, Im useing a old one on my new computer I got last year and it's working just fine.

E_Look · « **Reply #2 on:** April 07, 2004, 04:56:37 pm »

Thanks, but are there any installation issues with WinXP and an old hard drive with stuff on it I don't want to erase?

Sethan · « **Reply #3 on:** April 07, 2004, 05:02:10 pm »

Quote:

Thanks, but are there any installation issues with WinXP and an old hard drive with stuff on it I don't want to erase?

Depends on how you install XP.

I'd be inclined to copy anything you want to keep to the other drive (and then disconnect it), before installing XP - but I'm a little paranoid with stuff like that. Better safe than sorry.

Barabbas · « **Reply #6 on:** April 08, 2004, 04:03:51 pm »

The 15Gb and 40Gb drives aren't all that old, and if you've had no problems with them, just plug 'em into the new system and start the install from the XP CD.

Check the label on each drive and make sure you have them set properly. You new system probably has two HDD controllers, a primary and a secondary. Each controller can support a master and a slave drive. Your 40 should be the master, since it's probably faster and so you'd want that to be the WinXP system drive. Make that one a Master. The 15Gb drive could then be a Slave on the primary channel, or a Master on the secondary. Then your CD drive would either be Master or Slave on the Secondary, depending on what you choose for the 15Gb drive.

Does any of that make sense?

E_Look · « **Reply #7 on:** April 08, 2004, 08:25:17 pm »

Everyone, thanks for your answers so far.

Javora, the two drives actually are still in a system running Win 98. Can I just plug them in then, or do I still have to copy their data and then zero out before installing?

And Barabbas, that makes total sense... and I was considering the reverse, putting the OS and some executables on the 15 Gb and saving the 40 for stuffing data and image files, but I totally forgot that the newer one, the 40, must be faster!

Sethan · « **Reply #8 on:** April 08, 2004, 08:39:29 pm »

I second what Javora and Barabbas said.

A default install of XP can easily wipe the drive you are installing it on, if you are not familiar with such installs and / or careful - that is why I suggested copying all the data to the other drive first.

Barabbas is correct about making the 40GB the master - but I would put the 15GB on the secondary IDE channel (with the CD drive as the slave). If the two hard drives are on the same IDE channel and the data transfer rate of the two hard drives is different, the machine will transfer data at the slower rate of the two - even from the faster drive.

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #10 on:** April 09, 2004, 10:16:16 am »

Yea most CDROMS are still UDMA 33...definatly slower than almost any harddrive thats a couple years old to present.

Sten · « **Reply #11 on:** April 09, 2004, 12:03:35 pm »

Something else to consider how much performance do you want to get from this computer?

Assuming all you have is 2 EIDE controillers. No SCSI, or extra controller cards installed.

Assume the CDROM moves data at 300 KBs to 1.3 MBs more or less.

Check out the speed of your hardrives.

You may find you have UDMA-33 drives or 66 or possibly higher.

So why is this important if you set a Hardrive on the same controller port as the CDROM then the hardrive will transfer information at the same rate as the CDROM.

The golden rule whatever is the slowest device determines the bandwidth of data being moved.

So if your CDROM is moving data at 300-1300 KBs and your old UDMA-33 is moving at 33 MBs your old hardrive is going to pay and you are going to notice a major performance hit.

Likewise putting two hardrives on the same EIDE controller nothing says you can't mix and match them just remember the slower of the two drives is going to determine the overall bandwidth transfer rate of your HDDs.

E_Look · « **Reply #12 on:** April 09, 2004, 02:23:24 pm »

Yes, but it seems to me that many people just wire up the CDROM drives as slaves to their HDs. Then again, for many systems, how many IDE ports do you have on the motherboard? This is why, when I added an extra CDROM drive, another HD, I had to set up the two CDROMs as slaves to the primary and secondary HDs.

Are you saying maybe I should have set one HD as primary master, other as primary slave, and the CDROMs on the secondary line? Would this improve data throughput rates?

Capt. Mike · « **Reply #14 on:** April 10, 2004, 06:10:00 am »

What I've done is put the DVD and DVD burner on the secondary IDE, the 80G and 40G on the primary, and installed a controller card for the 20 and two 10's (I can't get rid of anything)..of course I put in a 550 W pwr supply and some extra fans, but everything has been working well. I seem to recall a while back that it was not good to mix and match HD with CD/DVD drives..so I've kept that strategy.

Mike

E_Look · « **Reply #15 on:** April 10, 2004, 12:27:47 pm »

550 W!! (And all that extra hardware!) Wow, Capt. Mike, did you put in some extra case fans or something?

Capt. Mike · « **Reply #16 on:** April 10, 2004, 04:13:54 pm »

Of course I did...read everything... have 2 extra fans and it's in the coolest room of the house

Mike

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #17 on:** April 12, 2004, 02:39:29 am »

You also should consider purchasing a addin PCI ATA-100/133 board if you have a hard drive that supports it and the IDE controllers on your motherboard are a bit old (ATA 33/66)

Here check this out:

http://www.pcclub.com/product_list.cfm?cat=Controller%20Cards&subcat1=Ultra%20ATA&subcat2=ATA%20133

E_Look · « **Reply #18 on:** April 16, 2004, 02:36:21 am »

Well, I began the assembly of the computer tonight, and it's "half" done: all I've gotten to so far is to install the CPU, its heatsink, the RAM, the video card, and power supply. Respectively, they are:

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton (and the retail package heatsink it came with)
2 sticks of Kingston DDR-2700 RAM (CL = 2.5)
Connect3D Radeon 9500 (alas, not the one with the "L" shaped chip pattern, i.e., the one that can be flashed up to a 9700) and
Thermaltake 420 W PSU (as far as I can see, not SATA ready, but I don't care, as I"m reusing old HDs), all hooked up to a
DFI NFII Ultra-AL (nForce 2 400 chipset) board (yeah, yeah, I know, my RAM is not dual channel, but I think this is a small matter)

Everything is wrapped up in a lime green (hey, it's for a kid!) Raidmax steel case with one of those kid-approved see-thru side panels... oh yeah, I will also stick in a third case fan that has green glowy LEDs, which is why kids approve of having a plastic case side in the first place.

I just hope I didn't screw up the little square of thermal contact goop on the underside of the heat sink; the heatsink of the northbridge chip, which is very close to the CPU socket, was kind of huge and impeded my installation of the CPU heatsink. (But I think I did it right, though.) You have to get the three plastic lugs on the side of the socket base closest to that northbridge chip close to the three openings in the plain side of the heatsink clip (as it won't go in by themselves) and then use your finger to push the metal clip at each cutout/lug point to get the lugs through, and then swivel down the heatsink as far as possible without forcing, then with gentle but firm pressure press the green tab on the remaining clip so that the three cutouts on that side secure themselves on the lugs of the other side of the socket base. This is the part of PC assembly I heat (fear) the most. It was easier with my Socket 754 MSI board and its Athlon 64; that went in fairly easily.

Now how am I going to stea... uh, remove the HDs and CDROM and zip drives out of his current system without him noticing?? Still, I think this beats spending another $100-200 for another HD, CDROM, and zip.

I hope I haven't bored all of you. Thanks for all your input! I will do as you all suggest, transferring the data to one of those drives, "zeroing" out that first one, and then installing XP fresh on a cleaned drive... and will do my best to keep the HDs and other drives on separate lines.

But I think I recall I used to have a problem with hooking up a zip drive either as master OR slave with a CDROM drive. I think I HAD to make it slave to a HD. And, bummer... this mobo only comes with ONLY ONE IDE ribbon cable (not even round, at that!). Ah, well, I think I can reuse the old IDE cables, too!

Capt. Mike · « **Reply #19 on:** April 16, 2004, 05:45:54 am »

To remove his hardware w/out him knowing it...take hime to the woods with a burlap bag and a bat, tell him to go out calling "here snipe, here snipe" and while he's occupied...go home and grab it

Mike

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Topic: New computer assembly with old hard drives (Read 17844 times) var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

E_Look

Khalee

E_Look

Sethan

E_Look

Javora

Barabbas

E_Look

Sethan

Barabbas

SL-Punisher

Sten

E_Look

Sten

Capt. Mike

E_Look

Capt. Mike

SL-Punisher

E_Look

Capt. Mike

Topic: New computer assembly with old hard drives (Read 17844 times)