26 replies to this topic

[crazi-85crx]

I'm installing a new Hardrive today as a Slave, but I want to be able to run an operating system on it because it's 250GB's and the Master HD is only 40GB's (~10GB left). I've heard of using Norton Ghost to transfer everything from the Master to the Slave to be able to run Windows. But, is it possible to run a different OS on the Slave than on the Master? I was thinking of using Linux XP on the new HD and keeping Windows XP on the old.

Do I even need to have an OS on the new HD if I want to install programs/games on it?

I'm not completely lost, am I? Oh well, I know there's a few of you on here that know your stuff... so please help . It's much appreciated.

[DarkHand]

You could run multiple OS's on even one hard drive if you wanted. But if all you need is more storage, you don't need an OS on it. Just connect the drive as a slave drive, and pretty much any modern OS will recognise it. Then you're all set.

The best, fastest, and safest way to set it up would be to use your new drive as your main drive. It's much faster than your old 40gig. Set up the 250gb drive as master, and install a fresh copy of whatever OS you want to use (most likely WindowsXP) on it. Then copy over whatever files you want to keep from the 40gb drive. If anything goes wrong, you can just switch the 40gig drive back up as master and everything is back to normal!

[badpenny]

^Much more right than what I had originally posted

[crazi-85crx]

thanks guys.

[3gencivic]

you also dont need a os to have programs and games on the second drive to use it.

thats what i have done

my main is a 80gb that only has os and manitort programs and my movies.

my slave a 6.5gb is got my music and pics and all my programs

its also nice to have all the inportent info on th eslave so if the main gos down you lose nonthing in value

[crazi-85crx]

you also dont need a os to have programs and games on the second drive to use it.

That'll be Plan-B if I can't make it my master with an os on it.

So if I can't find my Windows Install disk, would copying the old hardrive to the new one make Windows already installed on it so I can run it as the master?

[petersterncan]

you also dont need a os to have programs and games on the second drive to use it.

That'll be Plan-B if I can't make it my master with an os on it.

So if I can't find my Windows Install disk, would copying the old hardrive to the new one make Windows already installed on it so I can run it as the master?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you can't find your Windows install CD, you can use Ghost (or similar hard disk imaging software) to copy an image of the drive just as long as the destination drive is the same size or bigger than the source.

Whether the hard disk is a master or slave doesn't matter that much. But the partition on the hard disk (whether it is primary/boot or extended) does matter.
And so does how it is formatted (as in what file system is used... fat12 ,fat16, fat32, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3, xfs, ReiserFS. HPFS, ODS-2 and many others) also is very important considering you may want completely different operating systems accessing the same data.

Then it's just a question of having a boot manager come up before the OS starts.

You don't need to use the boot manager that comes with Windows. Symantec has one and there are some under Linux. You just need to do a google search on "boot manager" and all kinds of stuff will come up.

And as others have mentioned, you don't need to have an OS installed on a hard disk just to install programs or data on it.

But ideally, you always want to use your fastest hard disk for your operating system, swap file and frequently used applications. And for best performance, that partition should not take up more that the first 50% of the hard disk (the beginning of a hard disk is anywhere from 50 to 100% faster than the end of a disk in terms of continuous transfer rates).

Before you reconfigure your hard disk setup, I suggest checking out www.storagereview.com

That site is excellent for getting every little nitty gritty detail on hard drives and hard drive performance. And if you know the make and model of your hard drives, you'll be able to directly compare the speeds.

But without even checking, I know that your 250gb will be very noticeably faster than your 40gb hard drive due to areal density reasons alone.

Peter

[crazi-85crx]

^^^ wow, thank you. I've decided I'll either move the operating system on to the new one, or just run it without one.

Ghost... is it the same as copy & pasting?

[badpenny]

Ghost... is it the same as copy & pasting?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Something like that. It will copy files that "cant or aren't" to be moved

[crazi-85crx]

What if I turned off "read only" on everything in the C:\ drive, then could it be straight Ctrl+C'd & Ctrl+P'd?

[badpenny]

What if I turned off "read only" on everything in the C:\ drive, then could it be straight Ctrl+C'd & Ctrl+P'd?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The windows security won't allow it. But, if you have a brand new HD it should come with installation software, plus it won't delete the old info on the old HD if you don't want it too.

[crazi-85crx]

But, if you have a brand new HD it should come with installation software, plus it won't delete the old info on the old HD if you don't want it too.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I know all that, I'm just trying to get the operating system onto the new HD so it's faster.

[EuphoricBlue]

Tip: With a drive that big you should partition it to seperate your OS and Storage sections; this way if you need to reinstall the OS you can just format the OS partition and none of the data in the Storage partition will be affected.

I have my 250 gig formated into 3 partitions right now; OS, Download and Storage.

[crazi-85crx]

Tip: With a drive that big you should partition it to seperate your OS and Storage sections; this way if you need to reinstall the OS you can just format the OS partition and none of the data in the Storage partition will be affected.

I have my 250 gig formated into 3 partitions right now; OS, Download and Storage.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Okay, how?

[EuphoricBlue]

Give me a sec, I'll type up a "How To"

Here it is:

Install the hard drive into slave and start the computer.

In Windows go to: Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management

In Computer Management's left window select Storage>Disk Management

In the lower right section you will see a list of disks. Should be Disk 0, Disk 1, CD-ROM 0

Select Disk 1, It should be the one that doesn't have a File System. It won't say "Drivename (C:), Size, File System Type, Healhty" to the left. Also under Disk 1 you should see it say that it's 232.88 GB, insted of the 30something Disk 0 would say.

You will need to right click it, Select format. It will ask you to asign a drive letter (default should be the next in line) and the size you want to dedicate to this partition (I gave 25gigs to my OS drive)

When the format is done Drive 1 should show 2 blocks to the left of it representing usage of the drive. The smaller one will have a drive letter asigned to it, that's the one you just made, and a larger one that is still unformated. Rightclick on the larger one and format it using the remainder of the space.


It should be pritty much self expalnitory when you rightclick on the new drive.
Hope I'm not too comfusing.

Edited by EuphoricBlue, 02 July 2006 - 02:00 PM.