Desktop

Ask something
Discussion Locked

add hard drive capacity

0 helpful
10 replies

by warrenl

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

What is recommended---

Add a second HD or copy existing info to a new hard drive? And why?

warren

10 replies

by cg it

either method. depends upon individual preference and individual user familiarity of saving documents to folders other than default installtion settings. If the user isn't all that familiar, adding another HDD, resulting in having to remember to save em to the D:\ might confuse em. So copying to a larger drive might be more advised.

by cg it

I'll add this. Using Windows XP with Word, Excel, etc. the default settings for saving documents is C:\documents & settings\user account\my documents then there is saving pictures, videos, music so on and so on. the default save to file is C:\documents & settings\user account\my which ever folder goes with which ever document. If you ADD a HDD and open up MS Word and do a file save as, give the document a name and the choose the location D:\ then Word will remember to now always save stuff to D:\ . Same with excel, power point, Photoshop works like this, even downloads. All ya have to do is set it up once and the program remembers to always do it that way.

by warrenl

D.R. etal

Boy that was a fast answer. I think I am in the group that should copy to a new HDD. Thanks for the info.

warren

by pctech

Hi
DR made some very good points and personal preference plays into your decission. There are other things I would consider as well.
An older, slower hard drive will hurt your overall system performance when combined with a newer and faster hard drive. You will not be able to realize the full potential of what the faster hard drive has to offer you. Placing the older drive on the secondary IDE port will alleviate some of this problem but, system performance will still suffer whenever you access information on the older hard drive. I definately would not use the older hard drive for anything other than backups, archived pictures and music files, and seldom accessed files.
Hard drive speed is not just how many RPMs the drive will spin up to. Access/Seek time and transfer rates play a major role in overalll speed as well. Should the two drives be of comparable speed, then this issue goes away.
Your OS is another considration as to if you copy the drive contents to the new drive or do a fresh install of the OS. DOS through WinME can be copied over to the new drive without any problems. FDISK the new drive with it being the only hard drive in the computer and set the partition as active. Then format /s the new hard drive with the OS you will be copying and then copy the ENTIRE contents of the old drive to the new drive and allow the copy function to overwrite any files already on the new hard drive. Foramt /s also copies the system files to the hard drive and these will need to overwritten with the files from the old drive.
..... continued

by pctech

.... from previous post
Once this done, you should be able to boot straight to the desktop with the new drive.
Win 2K and above will not copy over and be bootable. You will need to GHOST the image from the old drive to the new drive to retain the partition information Win 2K and above needs to boot. This is true even if the drive is formatted with FAT32.
The "cleanest" way is to do a fresh install of the OS and then copy the DATA, not the apps, over from the old drive. This eliminates any software problems and bloated regisrty that may exist on the old hard drive.

I hope this helps you.

by warrenl

D.R. and pctech

I see now that I should have specified that I am using a HP6630 computer and Win98SE.

After reading your info, I have decided to have a shop copy old HDD to new faster one and install it for me. I was concerned about the different speeds if I had two HDD's installed and you have cleared that up.

Your help has been great, and thanks again.

warren

This discussion is closed to new replies.