Posted: 9/28/2009 5:52:08 AM EDT
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I'd like to accomplish two things:
1. Install a larger hard internal drive to my home PC. 2. Set up an external hard drive to use as part of a back-up plan. I currently have an 80GB EIDE internal 3-1/2" hard drive. It's nearly full and I'd like to replace it with a 500GB SATA internal drive. Then re-task the 80GB drive as a external back-up drive. My plan, so far: A. Remove the 80GB EIDE drive and replace it with the 500GB SATA drive. B. Format the SATA drive. Install my copy of Windows XP Home (Can't go linux at this time) C. Put the 80GB in an external case with a USB interface. D. Copy the important stuff back to the new drive: Pics, documents, etc. E. Format the 80GB drive and set it up for regular back-ups. Make sense? Would it be possible to run both the drives internally, one SATA and one EIDE? Should I format the SATA drive with multiple partitions and put the OS in it's own partition? I thought that this would make it easier to reinstall Windows if needed. Thanks in advance for the advice. |
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It depends on your motherboard mainly.
If you have SATA ports on your motherboard, I don't see you having any trouble using the ide drive internally as long as you have physical space for it. 80 GB isn't going to last long for backup once you start realizing you don't need to conserve space. If you leave it internally, that would mean less work for getting linux up and running if you want to try it out. I don't know of any external external docks that would work well for ide anyway. ETA: About partitioning the 500 GB drive. If I were to do that (and I really wouldn't), I'd make three partitions, one for the system, one for programs, and one for your documents. To streamline that, I'd mount the other partitions as Program Files and Documents and Settings. Unfortunately, Windows doesn't let you do this easily. Anyways, this is pretty inefficient speed wise having three partitions on one disk, and you'd only benefit if you mounted entire drives. And it would be a massive PITA to reinstall windows like this. The problem is you'd still have to install programs, and you might completely lose access to your files (even when logged in as Administrator). Just realize you are kinda painting yourself in a corner if your spare disk is significantly smaller than the disk you plan to use. |
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I'm not a gamer or video saver or big music guy. It took my family 5 years to come close to filling an 80GB drive.
My motherboard has 4 unused SATA connectors, and the physical space for another hard drive. The idea behind the partitions was to make it easy to reinstall the OS without losing everything. Is there a better way to do this? Thanks! |
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Quoted:
I'm not a gamer or video saver or big music guy. It took my family 5 years to come close to filling an 80GB drive. My motherboard has 4 unused SATA connectors, and the physical space for another hard drive. The idea behind the partitions was to make it easy to reinstall the OS without losing everything. Is there a better way to do this? Thanks! 30 day trial of acronis true image: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/ Unless you are set on reinstalling from scratch, clone your 80gb to the 500gb. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
I'm not a gamer or video saver or big music guy. It took my family 5 years to come close to filling an 80GB drive. My motherboard has 4 unused SATA connectors, and the physical space for another hard drive. The idea behind the partitions was to make it easy to reinstall the OS without losing everything. Is there a better way to do this? Thanks! 30 day trial of acronis true image: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/ Unless you are set on reinstalling from scratch, clone your 80gb to the 500gb. I have been running this install for about 5 years. After several recent spyware issues and some general system instability, I feel that a fresh install is warranted. I will also take this opportunity to toss in some more RAM. |
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With the cheap prices of hard drives (or even network storage devices for that matter), I would install the new 500 GB hard drive and reinstall the OS without partitioning. I would then use another HD for data. This can be internal, external, a NSD, it doesn't matter. An external HD will be a little easier to move to another PC if needed.
You could also make images of your OS hard drive periodically if desired to make reformatting a little quicker/easier next time. I personally don't bother with the images since all of my software is legit and I have the media. 
One piece of advice about reinstalling the OS. It is much easier to identify and obtain the drivers you will need before you reformat. |