Hard Drive install advice please

  • Thread starter Thread starter JEC
  • Start date Start date
J

JEC

Hello,

Just picked up a new 120 GB HDD for my HP Pavilion (the original was too
slow). The pain in the neck part is going to be that the computer came with
a recovery partition (which I have made into recovery disks) instead of XP
on disk, so I'll either use the recovery disks or just transfer old disk to
new disk using the supplied software on the new disk. But another thing I'm
wondering about is how to partition the drive (if I even should). Like I was
thinking three partitions might be good, one for windows, one for other
programs, and one for data. Or just two, one for programs and windows, one
for data. I've installed new hard drives from scratch before, but this will
be my first attempt at partitioning a drive and copying stuff from an old
drive.

Thanks for your help!
 
Hello,

Just picked up a new 120 GB HDD for my HP Pavilion (the original was too
slow). The pain in the neck part is going to be that the computer came with
a recovery partition (which I have made into recovery disks) instead of XP
on disk, so I'll either use the recovery disks or just transfer old disk to
new disk using the supplied software on the new disk. But another thing I'm
wondering about is how to partition the drive (if I even should). Like I was
thinking three partitions might be good, one for windows, one for other
programs, and one for data. Or just two, one for programs and windows, one
for data. I've installed new hard drives from scratch before, but this will
be my first attempt at partitioning a drive and copying stuff from an old
drive.

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...
Hi there,

I'm new here, but I figured I've had some questions answered so I
should help answer a few myself.

I assume you're using XP. In which case you don't really need to
create all your partitions from the word go. If the "supplied
software on the new disk" you mention will allow you to define a
partition size on the new drive when you copy, instead of just blindly
filling the whole new disk, then you could just use (say) 20 or 30 G
of space for Windows XP on the new drive and leave the rest empty for
now.

Once XP boots up you can use Disk Management to create new partitions
later. That'll give you time to figure out how many more you want,
and what size you want them to be.

It would all depend on what sort of data you want to store I guess.
For example I've got a "C" system partition of 10G, a Games partition
(D) of 10G, a Work/Data partition (E) of 7G, and a 3G partion (S) just
to hold the pagefile. And that neatly soaks up a 30G drive.

However, those numbers have changed slowly over time, as I bought new
(larger) drives, and newer (bigger) games appeared. So I found
Partition Magic an invaluable piece of software. It also allows me to
clone one drive directly to another, adjusting the partition sizes on
the fly. Once you've got your new drive in place, I'd recommend
investing in a copy of PM for the future.

cheers

Dave
 
JEC said:
Hello,

Just picked up a new 120 GB HDD for my HP Pavilion (the original was too
slow). The pain in the neck part is going to be that the computer came with
a recovery partition (which I have made into recovery disks) instead of XP
on disk, so I'll either use the recovery disks or just transfer old disk to
new disk using the supplied software on the new disk. But another thing I'm
wondering about is how to partition the drive (if I even should). Like I was
thinking three partitions might be good, one for windows, one for other
programs, and one for data. Or just two, one for programs and windows, one
for data. I've installed new hard drives from scratch before, but this will
be my first attempt at partitioning a drive and copying stuff from an old
drive.

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...

Unless you're planning on installing multiple operating systems, in
which case you would need multiple partitions, they're pretty much a
waste of time. They're especially annoying because they limit you to
40GB, 40GB, and 40GB, rather than a consolidated total of 120GB, and
it's really hard (not to mention potentially dangerous) to resize a
partition while keeping the data. Also, partitions have advantages if
they're on separate drives - but by putting the partitions on the same
drive, you're not getting a performance boost, so there's really no need
to do it.
 
Cyde said:
Unless you're planning on installing multiple operating systems, in
which case you would need multiple partitions, they're pretty much a
waste of time. They're especially annoying because they limit you to
40GB, 40GB, and 40GB, rather than a consolidated total of 120GB, and
it's really hard (not to mention potentially dangerous) to resize a
partition while keeping the data. Also, partitions have advantages if
they're on separate drives - but by putting the partitions on the same
drive, you're not getting a performance boost, so there's really no
need to do it.
Click to expand...

The big advantage to having a partition for the OS and proggys and one for
data is that if your OS dies (and there's a reasonable chance it will one
day if you're using an MS OS) then you can just reformat and reinstall on
the OS partition, leaving all your data intact on the other partition. I've
been setting up my (and my friends) PCs like that for a while now and it's
saved a lot of headaches in the past.

IMO there is no point having the OS on one partition and the proggys on
another (unless you run out of room on the OS part.) as, if you have to
re-install the OS, you have to re-install the proggys as well or their
registry entries won't be there and they won't run

It has nothing to do with performance boosting and everything to do with
retaining data. Of course, a seperate drive or a back up is the only way to
go with irreplacable stuff but this is a good way of helping to minimise
loss of data when you only have one drive.

Who said anything about re-sizing partitions?
 
The big advantage to having a partition for the OS and proggys and one for
data is that if your OS dies (and there's a reasonable chance it will one
day if you're using an MS OS) then you can just reformat and reinstall on
the OS partition, leaving all your data intact on the other partition. I've
been setting up my (and my friends) PCs like that for a while now and it's
saved a lot of headaches in the past.
Click to expand...

An easier way is to Ghost the first partition...with everything on
it...to a second partition. If you then have any problems (with
Linux, etc. ((lol!))...just clone it back to the 1st partition. Its a
LOT faster than doing an install again...and having to go for updates
again.

With XP, its a LOT faster. If you reinstall XP, you've gotta go get
the service pack again!


Have a nice week...

Trent

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!
 
Trent© said:
An easier way is to Ghost the first partition...with everything on
it...to a second partition. If you then have any problems (with
Linux, etc. ((lol!))...just clone it back to the 1st partition. Its a
LOT faster than doing an install again...and having to go for updates
again.

With XP, its a LOT faster. If you reinstall XP, you've gotta go get
the service pack again!
Click to expand...

Hi Trent.

It's funny, I've never had any luck cloning a drive and then restoring from
it. It's never worked for me. Mind you, the only time I've tried it is when
I'm upgrading/cross-grading to a different drive. I've tried with Norton
Ghost and Maxblast 3. Windows XP. No luck. Maybe I'm doing something wrong
but I can't see how.

Oh well, I'm an invalid with time on my hands so it's not that big a deal
for me but it would be nice to be able to do it. That said, being an invalid
I don't have a lot of money/spare HDD space for a full copy of my boot
partition. That's why I've only ever tried it when swapping drives.

Cheers,
 
Just did 3 partition copies when upgrading drives on 3 XP machines.
I got a new 60gb and used the maxblast 3 for Windows for the copy.
You install the drive as a slave in the machine and run the windows version
of maxblast 3copying the partition. When running the program, you select it
as a new (primary) boot device. Then when done just reconfigure the new
drive as the primary for the system. I always kept one partition for
everything as I had no need of any other OS. Everything except MS office
worked. MS Office had to be repaired on every machine.?
It will take a long time to copy many GBytes of data.

The boot floppy disk/cdrom version of maxblast 3 did not work. It would run
thru copying but then windows claimed it was unformatted.!
 
Scott said:
Just did 3 partition copies when upgrading drives on 3 XP machines.
I got a new 60gb and used the maxblast 3 for Windows for the copy.
You install the drive as a slave in the machine and run the windows
version of maxblast 3copying the partition. When running the program,
you select it as a new (primary) boot device. Then when done just
reconfigure the new drive as the primary for the system. I always
kept one partition for everything as I had no need of any other OS.
Everything except MS office worked. MS Office had to be repaired on
every machine.?
It will take a long time to copy many GBytes of data.

The boot floppy disk/cdrom version of maxblast 3 did not work. It
would run thru copying but then windows claimed it was unformatted.!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I have tried Maxblast 3 from floppy twice now trying to
copy the boot drive contents to another drive with the same result, no boot.
Interesting to know that the Windows version works. I would have thought
(did think) that by doing it from floppy it would have been better but not
so. I didn't try from Windows.

Cheers, much appreciated. That could save me a lot of time if I have to do
it again and one of the drives is a Maxtor.
 
Thanks for the info. I have tried Maxblast 3 from floppy twice now trying to
copy the boot drive contents to another drive with the same result, no boot.
Interesting to know that the Windows version works. I would have thought
(did think) that by doing it from floppy it would have been better but not
so. I didn't try from Windows.

Cheers, much appreciated. That could save me a lot of time if I have to do
it again and one of the drives is a Maxtor.
Click to expand...

Is the new drive on the same IDE channel/position as the original? If
not, you'll need to edit the boot.ini file... a Google search will find
the parameters needed for any particular drive or partition.
 
"kony" asked:
Is the new drive on the same IDE channel/position as the original?
If not, you'll need to edit the boot.ini file... a Google search will find
the parameters needed for any particular drive or partition.
Click to expand...

It seems that you're saying that if the copy was made from Master
to Slave on IDE channel 1, the first bootup of the clone must be as
Master on IDE channel 1. What about subsequent bootups? Can
the clone then be on other channels/positions?

*TimDaniels*
 
kony said:
Is the new drive on the same IDE channel/position as the original? If
not, you'll need to edit the boot.ini file... a Google search will
find the parameters needed for any particular drive or partition.
Click to expand...

Yes. When I've tried to make a copy of the boot drive before I've had the
new drive as secondary master, then, once copying is complete, moved it to
primary master and removed the old drive.. It hasn't worked both times I've
tried it using Maxblast 3, running from a DR-DOS floppy.
 
"kony" asked:

It seems that you're saying that if the copy was made from Master
to Slave on IDE channel 1, the first bootup of the clone must be as
Master on IDE channel 1. What about subsequent bootups? Can
the clone then be on other channels/positions?

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...


The drive the bios boots to has to have the NT boot loader on it. I
"think" you can boot to the WinXP CD, choose to do a repair, and it will
prompt you to choose which drive to repair, then use the command FIXBOOT.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...echnol/winxppro/proddocs/bootcons_fixboot.asp

The BOOTCFG command can also be used, in place of editing boot.ini
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q291980
 
kony said:
The drive the bios boots to has to have the NT boot loader on it. I
"think" you can boot to the WinXP CD, choose to do a repair, and it
will prompt you to choose which drive to repair, then use the command
FIXBOOT.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechn
ol/winxppro/proddocs/bootcons_fixboot.asp

The BOOTCFG command can also be used, in place of editing boot.ini
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q291980
Click to expand...

I know you weren't talking to me Dave but the second time I tried to copy a
boot drive using Maxblast 3 from floppy I went through all the options in
'repair' to no avail. I tried 'fixboot' amonst others ('fixmbr' 'bootcfg'
and whatever else I thought might help after typing 'command' ? to see what
they did). In the end I did a repair installation, which basically
re-installed, but then formatted and started again as the repair install
didn't have the registry entries needed for the installed proggies (which
were still there but unusable). I figured a clean slate was better than
reinstalling all my proggies over themselves just to get the registry
entries in place, especially a a lot of my games had been patched and I kept
getting 'the file being copied is older.....'
 
I know you weren't talking to me Dave but the second time I tried to copy a
boot drive using Maxblast 3 from floppy I went through all the options in
'repair' to no avail. I tried 'fixboot' amonst others ('fixmbr' 'bootcfg'
and whatever else I thought might help after typing 'command' ? to see what
they did). In the end I did a repair installation, which basically
re-installed, but then formatted and started again as the repair install
didn't have the registry entries needed for the installed proggies (which
were still there but unusable). I figured a clean slate was better than
reinstalling all my proggies over themselves just to get the registry
entries in place, especially a a lot of my games had been patched and I kept
getting 'the file being copied is older.....'
Click to expand...

I don't know... Am fortunately in not having to swap drives around with
WinXp and I'm not even sure I've ever used Maxblast 3. I've use several
versions of Maxblast but the last was a red & white cdrom, which of course
I can't find right now (LOL), and the newer discs that I'm sure I've never
used, say Maxblast 3 on them but are white & black colored. Now that i
look closer the white & black say version 3.6, and all the floppy images I
have are for Maxblast II... curiosity now takes over, I'll have to find a
spare HDD somewhere and play with Maxblast 3.
 
kony said:
The drive the bios boots to has to have the NT boot loader on it. I
"think" you can boot to the WinXP CD, choose to do a repair, and it will
prompt you to choose which drive to repair, then use the command FIXBOOT.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...echnol/winxppro/proddocs/bootcons_fixboot.asp

The BOOTCFG command can also be used, in place of editing boot.ini
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q291980
Click to expand...


But getting back to your earlier post, it seems that you're saying that
if the copy was made from Master to Slave on IDE channel 1, the
first bootup of the clone must be as Master on IDE channel 1.
Is that the procedure that is necessary without resorting to "fixing"
any files?

What about subsequent bootups? Can the clone then be on other
channels/positions?


*TimDaniels*
 
kony said:
I don't know... Am fortunately in not having to swap drives around
with WinXp and I'm not even sure I've ever used Maxblast 3. I've use
several versions of Maxblast but the last was a red & white cdrom,
which of course I can't find right now (LOL), and the newer discs
that I'm sure I've never used, say Maxblast 3 on them but are white &
black colored. Now that i look closer the white & black say version
3.6, and all the floppy images I have are for Maxblast II...
curiosity now takes over, I'll have to find a spare HDD somewhere and
play with Maxblast 3.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I downloaded and used Maxblast 3 from Maxtor's
website. I doubt I'll use it again though, pretty much all my drives are
Seagates now (one of the drives has to be a Maxtor to use it) and I only use
Seagates in new builds for other people.

Cheers,

shaun.
 
But getting back to your earlier post, it seems that you're saying that
if the copy was made from Master to Slave on IDE channel 1, the
first bootup of the clone must be as Master on IDE channel 1.
Is that the procedure that is necessary without resorting to "fixing"
any files?
Click to expand...

The drive the BIOS is set to boot from, must have the NT boot loader. If
you're still trying to boot from the original drive, which points to
itself as the source of the NT OS, you're not using the new duped drive at
all yet. If you boot to the new duped drive (from BIOS selection), it
works to a point in the boot process, but the boot loader still points to
the IDE channel/position of the original drive. This is what requires the
drive movement.

What about subsequent bootups? Can the clone then be on other
channels/positions?
Click to expand...

Subsequent bootup isn't different. It's (the OS) expecting to be the same
IDE channel and position, until it's changed by the user in one way or
another.

Is there an alternative? Maybe, there seems to be two or three ways to do
a lot of things with XP, but I don't know of another way.
 
kony said:
The drive the BIOS is set to boot from, must have the NT boot loader.
If you're still trying to boot from the original drive, which points to
itself as the source of the NT OS, you're not using the new duped drive
at all yet. If you boot to the new duped drive (from BIOS selection), it
works to a point in the boot process, but the boot loader still points to
the IDE channel/position of the original drive. This is what requires the
drive movement.



Subsequent bootup isn't different. It's (the OS) expecting to be the same
IDE channel and position, until it's changed by the user in one way or
another.

Is there an alternative? Maybe, there seems to be two or three ways to do
a lot of things with XP, but I don't know of another way.
Click to expand...


I suspect that after the 1st bootup, subsequent bootups can be from
any channel, any position, at least that seems to be what I've seen. The
problem is that successful HD cloning for bootable copies is so hit or
miss that once a "hit" is found, no further experimentation takes place
because of the time involved and the need for more HDs (if data is to
be protected from loss during experimentation). The result is that the
method that results in a hit becomes the only method known.

*TimDaniels*
 
Hi Trent.

It's funny, I've never had any luck cloning a drive and then restoring from
it. It's never worked for me. Mind you, the only time I've tried it is when
I'm upgrading/cross-grading to a different drive. I've tried with Norton
Ghost and Maxblast 3. Windows XP. No luck. Maybe I'm doing something wrong
but I can't see how.
Click to expand...

You must be...I do it all the time. XP and w2k are a little
fussy...they'll actually read and tell you that you have a different
drive. But that's about all.

Oh well, I'm an invalid with time on my hands so it's not that big a deal
for me but it would be nice to be able to do it.
Click to expand...

Sorry. I understand about being an invalid. I'm half Polish!


Have a nice week...

Trent

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!
 
But getting back to your earlier post, it seems that you're saying that
if the copy was made from Master to Slave on IDE channel 1, the
first bootup of the clone must be as Master on IDE channel 1.
Click to expand...

It doesn't NEED to be. But why would you NOT want it to be?

The idea behind the whole procedure is to not use the cloned drive
until needed...until you have a catastrophe where its necessary to put
the cloned drive in the machine to replace the original, booting
drive.
Is that the procedure that is necessary without resorting to "fixing"
any files?
Click to expand...

A cloned drive is usually prepared to replace the original drive when
necessary.
What about subsequent bootups? Can the clone then be on other
channels/positions?
Click to expand...

I'm not following you, Tim. Why would you want to do that? That's
not the goal of cloning.


Have a nice week...

Trent

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!
 
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