Thread: Hard Drive Stuff!!!

ok Guys... I just bought me a 160 gig WD Raptor 10k RPM Hard drive for 160 bucks... My question is: Now what?

Can I use it together with my 320gig IDE Hard drive? or will it just bog it down the Raptor's performance?...

Any input would be greatly appreciate...

Hopefully i will see a big difference from my lone 320gig Seagate IDE once this Raptor comes in

Originally Posted by NyghtEntreri

Hopefully i will see a big difference from my lone 320gig Seagate IDE once this Raptor comes in

It should noticeably outperform it.

If you mean use them together as in a RAID array, one is SATA and one is PATA right? I dont think there is a RAID controller that will run the two different interfaces in RAID.

what you shoudl do is use the raptor for your OS and game software, and use the 320gig for your file storage/music/pictures/patches/wahtever you store.

you can't RAID a PATA and SATA together.....unless maybe through some sort of PCI-addin controller.

And even then...don't both disks have to be the same size for a RAID to stripe? NOt even just size....but also speed?

if anything, RAIDing a 10,000rpm to a 7200 rpm might give you worse than just a 10000RPM alone.

Thanks Guys... So basically do i like lose everything that is on my 320 gig when i put the Raptor in there or
? Cuz i really don't want to have to reinstall all my shit.....

Originally Posted by NyghtEntreri

Thanks Guys... So basically do i like lose everything that is on my 320 gig when i put the Raptor in there or
? Cuz i really don't want to have to reinstall all my shit.....

no. you don't. But, windows isn't going to like having an operating system installed on both disks. Plug in your new drive, put in your windows CD, go to your bios and boot from the CD-ROM. Partition the new drive, install windows on it, start it up, and then copy over all the files and stuff you want from your old 320 onto your new drive. Once you're finished, format the drive (you can do that in windows, or using the windows CD as a boot disk again....whatever). Then, put all your important stuff back onto your big drive.

of course, this assumes that windows boots up having both OS-containing harddrives plugged in. I forgot how to set the boot designation.........either way, it should boot up on one of them.

Originally Posted by ...bigdog...

Originally Posted by NyghtEntreri

Thanks Guys... So basically do i like lose everything that is on my 320 gig when i put the Raptor in there or
? Cuz i really don't want to have to reinstall all my shit.....

no. you don't. But, windows isn't going to like having an operating system installed on both disks. Plug in your new drive, put in your windows CD, go to your bios and boot from the CD-ROM. Partition the new drive, install windows on it, start it up, and then copy over all the files and stuff you want from your old 320 onto your new drive. Once you're finished, format the drive (you can do that in windows, or using the windows CD as a boot disk again....whatever). Then, put all your important stuff back onto your big drive.

of course, this assumes that windows boots up having both OS-containing harddrives plugged in. I forgot how to set the boot designation.........either way, it should boot up on one of them.

Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management

Then in the tree to the left

Storage > Disk Management

In the panel on the right it will show you all disk drives Hard and Disk(CD/DVD/Blue Ray/Floppy/Zip/5.25" etc.) that windows recognizes. Right click on your primary drive(your raptor in this case) and mark it as active. This will select it as the drive you wish to boot with.

I did this when I dual'd XP and Vista...suffice to say, eXPerience won out.

I appreciate the help guys... happy holidays to all

I have a raptor for OS and gameplay, and a storage drive. Youll love it.

As a side note I plugged in another older drive to get some stuff off it, it still had a windows install on it. It didnt matter it ignored it and boot normally.

If you have less than 160 GB on the old drive, then the best thing would be to ghost the old to the new then make that the boot drive. Then defrag. Then after the two reboots Windows will want, hook up the old drive as a second drive. You can then format the old and reclaim all that space.