4 Hard drives and no idea

RoboCod

RoboCod

RoboCod

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Hi,

I have aquired 3 new hard drives recently because it became apparent to me that I need to replace the old Maxtor 80gb. The Maxtor seems to have some bad sectors, i.e. when I defrag there is a big red chunk that it cannot shift, its also about 5 - 6 years old and had some heavy use anyhow. I have since bought a pair of WD Raptor drives (36gb each) and a WD 250gb for storage.

I am under the belief that installing windows on the Raptor shall mean the OS runs much quicker so I intend to install XP ONLY on here. Should I just sell one of the Raptors then? 36gb would be plenty for XP + programs. Is it possible to clone my IDE installation of XP to SATA? Or would it be advisable to just do a fresh install? I was also wondering how some of you partitioned your storage drives? Im thinking a setup as follows...

#1 Raptor 36gb - XP

#2 WD 250gb partitioned as:

100gb - music
75gb - movies
75gb - games

#3 Maxtor 80gb - spare storage, documents perhaps.

Thanks in advance

CP
 
If the Maxtor is a good few years old and is throwing up bad sectors, I personally wouldn't risk putting any data on it so I'd get rid of it. Also you can't clone the install since XP will be confused about being on a different type of interface. You may be able to do a repair but you might be left with a slightly crippled install so I'd do a complete clean install.

Partitions: Remember that hard drives are fastest at the start and speed drops off so if you are going to partition your disc, remember that any partition you set near the end of the drive will be slower than any partition at the start. So a games partition I'd make the first partition, movies second and music third. Size of them is entirely dependant on your cirumstances

With your two Raptors, you (R)AID 0 them together but that comes with risks (more likely to lose data but if it's just the OS and Programs then you should be able to reinstall them no problem, just make sure any important data is on the 250GB drive).
 
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if u want blindingly fast performance u could raid 0 the 2 raptor 36gb drives and that would be unbelieveably fast!!!!
or u could have a secure os install and setup a raid 1 thus mirroring all the data for added security
this all depends on whether or not u have onboard raid of course but most motherboards today have that

id advise a fresh install of the os that way there are no hidden bugs to worry about :)

as for the maxtor if it does indeed have bad sectors i wouldnt be using it to store anything tbh
 
Hi mate, If i was you i'd do a fresh install of windows, it'll clear out all the rubbish that's accumulated over time and run faster.

I have no idea how important your documents are but if i was you then i wouldn't put anything i can't afford to lose on a 5-6 year old drive that's in your own admission a bit flakey :) HTH
 
I have just installed one of the Raptors and although it shows up in the Bios I cant seem to see it in My computer (?) Never used Sats before you see :rolleyes:

My thoughts were that I could sell one of the Raptors and just keep one. Ive never Raided before - how easy/hard is this?

Apologies for all the questions and thankyou's for all the sound advice :)
 
It will only show up in My Computer if you actually format it (partition it into at least one partition and format it). My Computer shows partitions and not physical devices.

If 36GB is enough then I'd sell the other one. RAID isn't too difficult, but it does have it's issues. If a drive fails then you lose all the data over the two drives ((R)AID 0), Mirroring means if one drive fails then the system falls onto the Mirror and your machine is still running (RAID 1). However, it's not a replacement for backing up as any changes to one drive are done to the other drive (mistakes, corruption and all). RAID (except (R)AID 0) is about availability and not a backup solution.

My Advice is: If 36GB is enough, flog the other drive.
 
Ok, Ive put the Drives into my computer, connected the Sata lead and the power pins, booted up the computer using the XP disk and tried Formatting both drives. Here I hit a problem. 1 drive fully formats 100% but I am then presented with an error message saying windows cannot be installed, the disc is either damged or not setup correctly. The other reaches 46% and just hangs (tried this 3 times now). I have checked the Bios settings and enabled Sata, I cant really think of anything else I should do, I dont need to change any jumpers do I ? At present there are no jumpers on either drive.

I should inform you that I purchased the drives second hand so they were likely to be used in a raid array previously. Would this mean I have to install them using F6 in the XP installation and using a floppy with the sata drivers on them?

Thanks for assisting

CP (NOOOOOB!)
 
Does your motherboard have 4 NF4 SATA ports? I've noticed you're overclocking your processor and what could be happening is the raised HTT could be corrupting the install. On NF4 unofficially people have found SATA3 and SATA4 to be locked (i.e don't change frequency when raising HTT) so either remove the overclock or move the drives onto SATA3 and SATA4 and try again. It's a bit of a long shot but worth a try.

WD drive utils are available here: http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp
 
Dunky said:
Does your motherboard have 4 NF4 SATA ports? I've noticed you're overclocking your processor and what could be happening is the raised HTT could be corrupting the install. On NF4 unofficially people have found SATA3 and SATA4 to be locked (i.e don't change frequency when raising HTT) so either remove the overclock or move the drives onto SATA3 and SATA4 and try again. It's a bit of a long shot but worth a try.

WD drive utils are available here: http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp
Click to expand...
Isn't that nForce 3 where only ports 3 and 4 were controlled by the nForce 4 controller and SATA 1 and 2 were not locked and would be affected by overclocking the CPU (as was the case on my nForce3 MSI Neo2 Plat)? nF4 is completely locked down, everything, with HTT not affecting anything other than FSB, unless there has been a new develepment...
 
I've heard some people say (mostly over at XS) that they've had issues with using 1 + 2 when overclocking and always used 3 + 4 but it could be a tradition carried over from nF3. The reports were sparse and it could be an issue with a particular BIOS in a certain mobo. It is a long shot but I guess it's worth eliminating it as a possible cause now.
 
Right that removes that situation. Ok, if possible try it with a different SATA cable. Could be a dodgy SATA cable (Shuttles used to have a similar problem where the cables used to cause the machine to BSOD at random times, new cables sorted it). Do still try the util smids said and see if the drives through up any errors.

If you know someone else with SATA ports on their mobo, ask them to hook it up and try and format it from their machine. If it works, then it could be a motherboard problem.
 
i really wouldnt partition the 250, there is no advantage to this other than if 1 partition gets taken over by a virus which isnt going to happen, from someone who knows from more than doing it once make folders for the Music & Video as when you fill your video partition you will be annoyed and you will have to scatter them elsewhere where you have space, and install games on the raptor, its faster.
 
Ok Ive used the WD diagnostic program to copy my installation of windows onto the raptor. This works fine, however, am I utilising the drive to its full potential or is the copy limiting it in any way? Should I just risk formatting it now to see if it works this time with the XP disc?
 
The fresh install would always be the best, but seems like it's not entirely possible in this situation. I suppose you could try a fresh WinXP install one more time and it fails then try and use the version copied by the util. Did the diagnostic program check over the drive and give it the ok? If so, sounds like maybe a duff WinXP install CD (maybe scratched..)
 
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