Adrielle
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Please advise - new (partition and installation) setup with second (new) hard drive
I have a Dell Dimension 4600 with a 120GB hard drive (Maxtor 6Y120M0), and a new second 120GB hard drive in the box that is almost exactly the same drive same manufacturer (a bit newer and faster). I'm having problems with Windows that a repair reinstallation did not resolve, and according to Dell it is time for a clean installation. Although I'm having what to me are serious enough problems to warrant the clean install (can't read blank CDs in either my CD-RW or DVD-ROM drive) by and large Windows is well-behaved and functional. Also I can write to disks with my backup program (big relief).
What I would like to do is this:
* Install the 2nd hard drive with 3 partitions
* (Small 5GB?) Windows only
* (20-30GB) Programs
* (Remainder) Data (lots of music)
* Install Windows XP Home on 2nd hard drive, 1st partition
* Install programs to 2nd hard drive, gradually as time permits over next few weeks
* Move data to the new HD
* Swap master/slave and reformat the 1st HD
1) What do you think about this setup? The reason for going this route is that I love to try new software. Installing and uninstalling programs makes my Windows wilt much sooner than most systems. This way if I need to reinstall Windows, as now, all I have to do is install to the 1st partition and not mess with the whole drive. Also, if I have to recreate a program I always do that from scratch from the original disks, so I won't be backing up that partition either.
2) How, exactly, is the best way to proceed through this? I haven't partitioned a HD since DOS. With the Dell it is easy to boot up from the Installation Dell Resource CD. But isn't it assuming that it will be formatting the master? Do I need to temporarily switch the two (cabling) in order to install Windows on the new drive, 1st partition.
3) How big a partition do I need for Windows XP Home edition, for everything that it can possibly need?
4) There are programs that insist on installing or putting data where they expect it (e.g. Outlook). How could I handle that with this setup? It has been a long time since I've dealt with partitions.
5) Is there anything tricky that I should know about doing this? I have backed up my entire 70GB to CDs. Boy wasn't that pleasant.
Lots of questions, I know, and not necessarily the right questions. Since there is nothing "wrong with my system I'll wait a day or two for answers to see what the best solution appears to be and then go ahead with it. If it works then I'll give a big hunk of the points to that suggestion and the rest to helpful responses.
Thanks! I appreciate your tutelage here.
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You can turn that low drive space warning off, but if you have two drives, the fastest configuration would be a striped raid. By putting your pagefile on a separate drive, one drive can lay long tracks of data while the second drive pages continuously. Big increase in speed. You would need a raid controller card or motherboard with a raid controller chip on it. Raid boards arent too expensive either, though higher with SATA, nows a good time to buy 7200 rpm ides. SCSI configs are the fastest but mucho bucks for the controller card.
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Thanks for the quick response. I guess that I already knew that computer types weren't the most tactful.
??? 2 Partitions -- I hear no votes at this point for the 3 partition idea. OK, I can see that. But why doesn't it make sense to have a Windows/Programs and a data partition? At this point over 90% of my space is .mp3 files -- does it still make sense to rope them in with the other Windows/Programs files? You guys tell me that partitions are only grief but do not say why. Why?
TimothyFryer - I'm pretty certain about the CD/DVD problem. The ones not working are disks that worked in the system a few weeks ago, and new disks of the exact same type that I have been using all along (Costco 100 CD-R packs). Like I said a repair reinstallation did not fix this. The Dell is only 5 months old (actually) so it isn't that creaky. I tried reinstalling the driver, and there are no firmware updates that I could find. I will check again.
??? Imaging the OS and/or programs -- I like this idea imaging of my OS, or OS plus program files that I KNOW that I will be using. I have Acronis TrueImage 7.0, although I haven't used it yet because I just got second drive. I was going to be using the second drive as a backup drive, putting images of the entire disk over there. This gives me pause. How would I make and reinstall an image only of the OS or only OS plus programs -- is it a matter of setting aside only certain directories to be imaged? Insofar as I can see Acronis only does whole disk imaging or incremental. What am I missing? Does ghost give you this selective ability? How would it restore Windows and Program files without toasting the system? Do you mean to back off all data and do a clean reinstallation or clean reimage? I am very ignorant about all of this, but it sounds like if I did this now would be the time.
Dell -- Before I contacted them it was firmly in my mind that they were not going to be able to help me, but I was going to give it a try and see if they surprised me. Out of 4 phone calls, 1 insisted that I call Canadian support and would not help me (refurbished unit), 1 in Canadian support refused to help me because I live in the U.S., 1 hung up on me after approximately 20 minutes after it was clear the call would take a while (oops), and the 4th at least helped me do some more checking into the CD problem but made some flat-out technical errors (repair reinstallation will wipe out your C:\My documents directory). This is sad, I used to get great help from Dell.
--------------
I'm going to give it a day to see if someone jumps in here and tells me how delightful an idea 3 partitions (or 2 partitions) would be [but doubtful based on this feedback]. If all roads lead to 1 partition, please let me know if the following steps are correct to install everything on the second drive and then make it the master drive.
1. Move the new drive physically into the bay
2. Format the 2nd drive <----***** How do I do this? *****
3. Install a **bootable** Windows XP Home on 2nd hard drive <----***** How do I do this? *****
How do I do 2 and 3 - can I format within XP or do I have to do a boot from the D:\ drive with the second drive cabled as master to create a bootable Windows second drive. Or what?
4. Install programs to 2nd hard drive as time permits over the next week, backing up whatever new data I create
5. Move all data to the new HD
6. Swap master/slave cabling
7. Wait for a while to make certain the 2nd drive works as the primary drive and then
7. Reformat the 1st HD and use it as intended, for backups
??? 2 Partitions -- I hear no votes at this point for the 3 partition idea. OK, I can see that. But why doesn't it make sense to have a Windows/Programs and a data partition? At this point over 90% of my space is .mp3 files -- does it still make sense to rope them in with the other Windows/Programs files? You guys tell me that partitions are only grief but do not say why. Why?
TimothyFryer - I'm pretty certain about the CD/DVD problem. The ones not working are disks that worked in the system a few weeks ago, and new disks of the exact same type that I have been using all along (Costco 100 CD-R packs). Like I said a repair reinstallation did not fix this. The Dell is only 5 months old (actually) so it isn't that creaky. I tried reinstalling the driver, and there are no firmware updates that I could find. I will check again.
??? Imaging the OS and/or programs -- I like this idea imaging of my OS, or OS plus program files that I KNOW that I will be using. I have Acronis TrueImage 7.0, although I haven't used it yet because I just got second drive. I was going to be using the second drive as a backup drive, putting images of the entire disk over there. This gives me pause. How would I make and reinstall an image only of the OS or only OS plus programs -- is it a matter of setting aside only certain directories to be imaged? Insofar as I can see Acronis only does whole disk imaging or incremental. What am I missing? Does ghost give you this selective ability? How would it restore Windows and Program files without toasting the system? Do you mean to back off all data and do a clean reinstallation or clean reimage? I am very ignorant about all of this, but it sounds like if I did this now would be the time.
Dell -- Before I contacted them it was firmly in my mind that they were not going to be able to help me, but I was going to give it a try and see if they surprised me. Out of 4 phone calls, 1 insisted that I call Canadian support and would not help me (refurbished unit), 1 in Canadian support refused to help me because I live in the U.S., 1 hung up on me after approximately 20 minutes after it was clear the call would take a while (oops), and the 4th at least helped me do some more checking into the CD problem but made some flat-out technical errors (repair reinstallation will wipe out your C:\My documents directory). This is sad, I used to get great help from Dell.
--------------
I'm going to give it a day to see if someone jumps in here and tells me how delightful an idea 3 partitions (or 2 partitions) would be [but doubtful based on this feedback]. If all roads lead to 1 partition, please let me know if the following steps are correct to install everything on the second drive and then make it the master drive.
1. Move the new drive physically into the bay
2. Format the 2nd drive <----***** How do I do this? *****
3. Install a **bootable** Windows XP Home on 2nd hard drive <----***** How do I do this? *****
How do I do 2 and 3 - can I format within XP or do I have to do a boot from the D:\ drive with the second drive cabled as master to create a bootable Windows second drive. Or what?
4. Install programs to 2nd hard drive as time permits over the next week, backing up whatever new data I create
5. Move all data to the new HD
6. Swap master/slave cabling
7. Wait for a while to make certain the 2nd drive works as the primary drive and then
7. Reformat the 1st HD and use it as intended, for backups
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Based on this feedback this is what I propose to do:
Going with 2 partitions
1. one with Windows and program files,
2. the second much larger partition for data.
Then, after I get all of the software squared away on the new drive's first partition the way I like it and the data moved over to the second partition, I would
1. Take an image of that first Windows and program files partition and store it on the 2nd hard drive as backup. I'm probably going to back up that first partition snapshot to CD as well. Then I'm going to leave the partition image alone until I make a major change in software and Windows has no problems. Then I will write over that first image (then second and so forth with software changes), retaining a backed up image of Windows and current installed software the time it was last in a defined stable state.
2. The second data partition I plan on making an image of every night.
How does that sound? Does 25 GB of a 120GB drive sound too small for the Windows and program files partition? Currently I am at 18.3 GB with Windows, program files, and misc. system files (page file, system volume). I've got some pretty large programs in there (SAS) that I will be taking off in 6 months or I would raise that to 25 to 30GB.
Based on feedback I am going to do whatever it is tomorrow morning so I appreciate any feedback quickly. I do appreciate the feedback thus far, it has been very helpful. I'm really glad now that I didn't go with 3 partitions.
Going with 2 partitions
1. one with Windows and program files,
2. the second much larger partition for data.
Then, after I get all of the software squared away on the new drive's first partition the way I like it and the data moved over to the second partition, I would
1. Take an image of that first Windows and program files partition and store it on the 2nd hard drive as backup. I'm probably going to back up that first partition snapshot to CD as well. Then I'm going to leave the partition image alone until I make a major change in software and Windows has no problems. Then I will write over that first image (then second and so forth with software changes), retaining a backed up image of Windows and current installed software the time it was last in a defined stable state.
2. The second data partition I plan on making an image of every night.
How does that sound? Does 25 GB of a 120GB drive sound too small for the Windows and program files partition? Currently I am at 18.3 GB with Windows, program files, and misc. system files (page file, system volume). I've got some pretty large programs in there (SAS) that I will be taking off in 6 months or I would raise that to 25 to 30GB.
Based on feedback I am going to do whatever it is tomorrow morning so I appreciate any feedback quickly. I do appreciate the feedback thus far, it has been very helpful. I'm really glad now that I didn't go with 3 partitions.
Sorry to stop you, but CD/DVD burning problems are not necessarily solvable by a reinstall to a clean drive. You could well end up in exactly the same spot. I would solve the software burning problems first, especially since you know you can backup to one of them. You most likely have a DVD conflict with another IDE device, and a new install may leave you no farther ahead.
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RAID BOARD RAID BOARD
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Well here I was, ready to roll up my sleeves and head on out. I'm going to go ahead and get started, but if you have the answers to these questions before I get too far I'll hold off a bit.
Sciwriter - I have not installed any hardware since the machine arrived, just played with lots and lots and lots of software (what can I say, easily bored). So how can this be an IDE conflict? Dell, such as it was helpful, said that this was not a hardware problem. What more can I do other than reinstall the drivers (tried) or search for new firmware (next step)? I confirmed that this happens in safe mode, and Dell had me check something in setup they never explained (they were going lock step down a debugging script and I'm not sure THEY knew what they were checking).
This smells like a software problem to me. One reason I feel this was because of missing information that I didn't bring into the mix to overcomplicate things -- I am having more and more subtle and now not so subtle problems with Windows itself. The repair reinstall did resolve at least one of them (the icon change question I asked help about elsewhere) but there are still others out there, the kind that give you a queasy stomach as ill portents of looming software failure. For example, Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer lock-ups are becoming increasingly common.
TimothyFryer - Insofar as I am a computer person, I am a software person and reluctantly hardware when I have to be. What is a RAID board and why would I want it? I am a graduate student in the last semester of my Ph.D. and money is stretched so thin as to snap. Buying the new machine was in desperation because my old machine was fried. It would be RAID board or food, do I need it that bad, or can't I wait until employed?
Gator - I bought this large GB drive (large to me, my last one was 10 GB, can you believe?) because I felt it was a capacity well over my needs. Although my greed has proven otherwise, I still believe I can live within that limit if I budget my bytes. There are many files on the drive (mp3s in particular) that will be coming off once I have two stray minutes to rub together. If I double the size of my current 18GB of Windows, program files, and system files (that includes 1 GB of a program that will be deleted in 6 months) to say 30-35 GB, and live within my means as far as data goes, then isn't this a better solution? That would be doubling the number of programs on the machine. Since my music is 49% of the data, I could move all of that off to an external drive if needed?
I like the idea of having a frozen copy of my last proven OS+programs ready to thaw out. As part of my declining system previous restore points just vanished last Monday so my confidence in them is remote. This gradual decline happens to me much too often, every 6 months to a year. Building my OS+software in layers, adding to it as I prove to myself a piece of software will serve me over the long run, feels like a good idea. I can retreat back to that when some whizbang program trashes my system, without having to back up the data. If I can live within say 35 GB and 85 GB data, isn't this a better solution?
Time to look for firmware and install the drive. I'll check back in here before partitioning. Many thanks, you have been very helpful. I'm very glad not to have done the 3 partitions.
Sciwriter - I have not installed any hardware since the machine arrived, just played with lots and lots and lots of software (what can I say, easily bored). So how can this be an IDE conflict? Dell, such as it was helpful, said that this was not a hardware problem. What more can I do other than reinstall the drivers (tried) or search for new firmware (next step)? I confirmed that this happens in safe mode, and Dell had me check something in setup they never explained (they were going lock step down a debugging script and I'm not sure THEY knew what they were checking).
This smells like a software problem to me. One reason I feel this was because of missing information that I didn't bring into the mix to overcomplicate things -- I am having more and more subtle and now not so subtle problems with Windows itself. The repair reinstall did resolve at least one of them (the icon change question I asked help about elsewhere) but there are still others out there, the kind that give you a queasy stomach as ill portents of looming software failure. For example, Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer lock-ups are becoming increasingly common.
TimothyFryer - Insofar as I am a computer person, I am a software person and reluctantly hardware when I have to be. What is a RAID board and why would I want it? I am a graduate student in the last semester of my Ph.D. and money is stretched so thin as to snap. Buying the new machine was in desperation because my old machine was fried. It would be RAID board or food, do I need it that bad, or can't I wait until employed?
Gator - I bought this large GB drive (large to me, my last one was 10 GB, can you believe?) because I felt it was a capacity well over my needs. Although my greed has proven otherwise, I still believe I can live within that limit if I budget my bytes. There are many files on the drive (mp3s in particular) that will be coming off once I have two stray minutes to rub together. If I double the size of my current 18GB of Windows, program files, and system files (that includes 1 GB of a program that will be deleted in 6 months) to say 30-35 GB, and live within my means as far as data goes, then isn't this a better solution? That would be doubling the number of programs on the machine. Since my music is 49% of the data, I could move all of that off to an external drive if needed?
I like the idea of having a frozen copy of my last proven OS+programs ready to thaw out. As part of my declining system previous restore points just vanished last Monday so my confidence in them is remote. This gradual decline happens to me much too often, every 6 months to a year. Building my OS+software in layers, adding to it as I prove to myself a piece of software will serve me over the long run, feels like a good idea. I can retreat back to that when some whizbang program trashes my system, without having to back up the data. If I can live within say 35 GB and 85 GB data, isn't this a better solution?
Time to look for firmware and install the drive. I'll check back in here before partitioning. Many thanks, you have been very helpful. I'm very glad not to have done the 3 partitions.
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My search for firmware came up short. Nothing at Dell, the java at Sony is broken, and all I can find is "roll your own" drivers, such as "region-free" drivers for the DVD-ROM. Probably they work, maybe they don't. I will try them after the changeover, if I can find anything that will "for sure" back up the current firmware.
Gator - I guess that your solution offers more overall spaciousness. It lacks the simplicity. I guess that I could be OK with that, I'm not particularly simple, although I do like backups to be as simple as possible. But, insofar as I know, I can't just image the OS, unless I take a snapshot before I pile everything else on. ?? And I can't restore only the OS, I restore everything in the image?? Is the compression of a 120GB drive in imaging such that I can have multiple copies of that AND data, mp3s etc.? That would surprise me, but my ignorance here is daunting.
I am not married to partitioning. Mostly I want to use these drives, hopefully with imaging software, such that I'm certain that I have a daily backup of all data and reasonably recent backups of the OS and programs. The idea of being able to revert to the last stable OS+programs configuration is very appealing to me. With your idea, I would have to move all data off the boot drive, take an image, and then move it back?
Gator - I guess that your solution offers more overall spaciousness. It lacks the simplicity. I guess that I could be OK with that, I'm not particularly simple, although I do like backups to be as simple as possible. But, insofar as I know, I can't just image the OS, unless I take a snapshot before I pile everything else on. ?? And I can't restore only the OS, I restore everything in the image?? Is the compression of a 120GB drive in imaging such that I can have multiple copies of that AND data, mp3s etc.? That would surprise me, but my ignorance here is daunting.
I am not married to partitioning. Mostly I want to use these drives, hopefully with imaging software, such that I'm certain that I have a daily backup of all data and reasonably recent backups of the OS and programs. The idea of being able to revert to the last stable OS+programs configuration is very appealing to me. With your idea, I would have to move all data off the boot drive, take an image, and then move it back?
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Ugh.. Some of these reponses kill me.
Adrielle, my solution is the simplest on the table at this moment. Adding addtional partitions is really fuxoring things up. My solution also requires you do less work and requires less to deal with while offering every MB of space available to you.
The imaging problems suggested by tmireles are non-existant. Empty space doesn't count for anything and can be resized on the fly. After all, it's empty space.
Once you build your plain vanilla default install of Windows, ghost it to the other drive and if you ever have any problems again, just restore the image.
One solution a step up (would require additional hard drive) would probably be to have a smaller 30-50GB drive for OS and programs and mirror the two 120GB drives for data protection.
Adrielle, my solution is the simplest on the table at this moment. Adding addtional partitions is really fuxoring things up. My solution also requires you do less work and requires less to deal with while offering every MB of space available to you.
The imaging problems suggested by tmireles are non-existant. Empty space doesn't count for anything and can be resized on the fly. After all, it's empty space.
Once you build your plain vanilla default install of Windows, ghost it to the other drive and if you ever have any problems again, just restore the image.
One solution a step up (would require additional hard drive) would probably be to have a smaller 30-50GB drive for OS and programs and mirror the two 120GB drives for data protection.
That is why I said depending on how much data is on the drive. If the drive is 80% full then you will have to image it to a drive of at least the size of the data.
The idea would be that data is being stored on the other (data/slave) drive, not on the primary. Thus one would only be backing up the Windows and Program files.
ASKER
OK, so how about this. After seeing that people had conflicting views about this I went back and checked some of my assumptions. I've gone back to the Acronis disk imaging software, key to all of this, which I have only used apparently once.
What I discovered is that
1) I had the foresight ?? to immediately make an image of the system when it arrived from Dell
2) According to Acronis, and it is well reviewed, True Image can do the following:
* Restore the entire image and/or individual files and folders
* Create incremental disk backup images
* Create and restore online disk backup images in Windows without reboot
* Schedule automated backups
* Backup only the necessary server disk sector contents [I have the server edition]
?? So this is backup SECTORS, not files, is that problematic ?? need to check this out
* Ability to do "high" compression levels
* Ability to exclude paging and hibernate files from disk image
So this is my latest iterated proposal
* 2 hard disks, 0 partitions
* Boot drive contains "fluid" files - Windows, program files, fluid data that needs backing up regularly (e.g. download files)
* Backup drive contains "static" files -- two parts (neither of which I back up??)
1. Disk images
2. Static data already backed up onto CDs, i.e. mp3s, pictures, etc.
I'm reaching saturation point here. Does that sound like it would be a good plan? I'm seeing that there is no perfect solution here, there is subjectivity involved. This would mean:
1. Install drive #2 as slave, format
2. Restore image of original Dell installation on drive #2 to make certain this really is a software problem, make drive #2 primary for temporary test, then reverse
3. Wipe the temporary Dell install on drive #2 (has lots of software I've either changed or deleted)
4. Reformat drive #2, clean install of Windows
5. Snapshot #1 - Create image backup of raw OS
6. Install software on drive #2 in the order of decreasing usage (i.e. often, occasionally, rarely etc.) [that is best, wasn't it?]
7. Take snapshot #2 of the OS+all programs currently utilizing
8. Add back in the more fluid data (SAS programs, output, Word files, downloaded files, etc.)
9. Take snapshot #3 of drive #2 as it will sit once this process is over
10. Organize static data into one block (one directory?) on drive #1, then move en masse over to #2
11. Copy original Dell snapshot #0 of Dell installation as it arrived over to drive #2 (it is hidden, not sure yet how to do this
12. Reformat drive #1
13. Move all static data back to drive #1 in separate directory
14. In second directory start making regular (incremental?) backups of all of drive #1 to drive #2
Since I don't believe it will affect the rest of this, I'm going to do steps 1-3 and then come back. I am starting to feel like the actors at the Academy awards, it will be necessary to thank so many contributions to this totally rewritten plan.
What I discovered is that
1) I had the foresight ?? to immediately make an image of the system when it arrived from Dell
2) According to Acronis, and it is well reviewed, True Image can do the following:
* Restore the entire image and/or individual files and folders
* Create incremental disk backup images
* Create and restore online disk backup images in Windows without reboot
* Schedule automated backups
* Backup only the necessary server disk sector contents [I have the server edition]
?? So this is backup SECTORS, not files, is that problematic ?? need to check this out
* Ability to do "high" compression levels
* Ability to exclude paging and hibernate files from disk image
So this is my latest iterated proposal
* 2 hard disks, 0 partitions
* Boot drive contains "fluid" files - Windows, program files, fluid data that needs backing up regularly (e.g. download files)
* Backup drive contains "static" files -- two parts (neither of which I back up??)
1. Disk images
2. Static data already backed up onto CDs, i.e. mp3s, pictures, etc.
I'm reaching saturation point here. Does that sound like it would be a good plan? I'm seeing that there is no perfect solution here, there is subjectivity involved. This would mean:
1. Install drive #2 as slave, format
2. Restore image of original Dell installation on drive #2 to make certain this really is a software problem, make drive #2 primary for temporary test, then reverse
3. Wipe the temporary Dell install on drive #2 (has lots of software I've either changed or deleted)
4. Reformat drive #2, clean install of Windows
5. Snapshot #1 - Create image backup of raw OS
6. Install software on drive #2 in the order of decreasing usage (i.e. often, occasionally, rarely etc.) [that is best, wasn't it?]
7. Take snapshot #2 of the OS+all programs currently utilizing
8. Add back in the more fluid data (SAS programs, output, Word files, downloaded files, etc.)
9. Take snapshot #3 of drive #2 as it will sit once this process is over
10. Organize static data into one block (one directory?) on drive #1, then move en masse over to #2
11. Copy original Dell snapshot #0 of Dell installation as it arrived over to drive #2 (it is hidden, not sure yet how to do this
12. Reformat drive #1
13. Move all static data back to drive #1 in separate directory
14. In second directory start making regular (incremental?) backups of all of drive #1 to drive #2
Since I don't believe it will affect the rest of this, I'm going to do steps 1-3 and then come back. I am starting to feel like the actors at the Academy awards, it will be necessary to thank so many contributions to this totally rewritten plan.
As a matter of principle: " * 2 hard disks, 0 partitions".... Not an option. You need at least one partition per drive. Seems OK otherwise.
/RID
/RID
14. In second directory start making regular (incremental?) backups of all of drive #1 to drive #2
Backing up a harddrive onto itself is a bad idea
if drive goes bad you have NO data and NO backup
Backing up a harddrive onto itself is a bad idea
if drive goes bad you have NO data and NO backup
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Yes, 2 hard drives, 1 primary partition on each drive. Everything else looks good.
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Hi. I was more brief in the last post and so my step-by-step was apparently not clear. By
* 2 hard disks, 0 partitions
I meant 0 = not breaking up the hard disks into partitions, i.e. 1 partition/drive, you're right my syntax was incorrect. And on
14. In second directory start making regular (incremental?) backups of all of drive #1 to drive #2
what I meant was: start making backups of all of drive #1 and place the images into in the second main directory (dedicated to image backups) on drive #2.
TY for the tutorial on RAID boards TimothyFryer. Insofar as I know none of my typical applications is hung up on drive transfers, it always appears to be simple cpu horsepower and memory that impedes me. I tend to, if the system can take it, have many applications going at once, flipping frequently to and fro. I'm still ignorant, but I'm assuming RAID might be useful for something like gaming?
At this point I still have not chosen between 1 or 2 partitions on the main hard drive, I see persuasive arguments both directions. The reason it took me a while to get back here is that I ran into problems with installing the second drive, which Maxtor said after 1.5 hours testing was either a bad drive or my ATA connector on the motherboard is bad (don't have any other ATA hard disks on hand to test this). So the short story is that I'm waiting 3-5 days for them to ship another drive before I can try this out.
Since my questions have basically all been answered (TY all, I really appreciate it) I'm going to close this out and award points. Since there was no "right" answer for this, just lots of questions and good advice, I'm awarding points primarily based how helpful the response was to this final resolution with a dash of how persistently the person tried to stick with the topic.
THANK YOU!!!!
* 2 hard disks, 0 partitions
I meant 0 = not breaking up the hard disks into partitions, i.e. 1 partition/drive, you're right my syntax was incorrect. And on
14. In second directory start making regular (incremental?) backups of all of drive #1 to drive #2
what I meant was: start making backups of all of drive #1 and place the images into in the second main directory (dedicated to image backups) on drive #2.
TY for the tutorial on RAID boards TimothyFryer. Insofar as I know none of my typical applications is hung up on drive transfers, it always appears to be simple cpu horsepower and memory that impedes me. I tend to, if the system can take it, have many applications going at once, flipping frequently to and fro. I'm still ignorant, but I'm assuming RAID might be useful for something like gaming?
At this point I still have not chosen between 1 or 2 partitions on the main hard drive, I see persuasive arguments both directions. The reason it took me a while to get back here is that I ran into problems with installing the second drive, which Maxtor said after 1.5 hours testing was either a bad drive or my ATA connector on the motherboard is bad (don't have any other ATA hard disks on hand to test this). So the short story is that I'm waiting 3-5 days for them to ship another drive before I can try this out.
Since my questions have basically all been answered (TY all, I really appreciate it) I'm going to close this out and award points. Since there was no "right" answer for this, just lots of questions and good advice, I'm awarding points primarily based how helpful the response was to this final resolution with a dash of how persistently the person tried to stick with the topic.
THANK YOU!!!!