snip!
I can't do anything with the HDs until I get a new hs/fan. I'm not looking
forward to having to take the machine apart to put that in.
If your power supply has long enough leads, you might be able to
unscrew it at the back and sort-of hang it off to the side or prop it
up, then be able to access the heatsink clip to remove it and install
the new one. It's your call, it's a bit more difficult to do it that
way but certainly possible, it was how I usually did it before I made
that mangled-screwdriver tool I mentioned in a previous post. The
main thing is to take your time, be able to see what you're doing.
Unless making a
XP2800+ work in my current m/board is easy, I'll get the XP2600+ which is
supposed to be the maximum it will take.
I don't have experience with that particular board, but in general a
KT333 board will run a CPU with 166MHz, DDR333 FSB. Basically it's
just a matter of leaving the FSB at 133MHz, installing the new CPU,
then going into the BIOS and upping the FSB speed (or by jumper,
whichever applies), AND making sure the memory is set to same,
synchronous speed, not "+33". Just now I researched your board and
saw reports of it working even with the Bartons... you might as well
max out the board with a Barton then. See here:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?W16036346
I also want to change the striping I've got now to mirroring, how do I do
that?
You can't really change it. You have to copy off the data, then
delete the array, change to mirroring, effectively erasing it, then on
your fresh/empty mirror, copy back the data. Once you set up a RAID 0
there's nothing that can or should be done to it, which is part of the
reason why they're such a PITA unless you have plenty of backup
storage too.
I currently have 2 x 20Gb identical drives, as far as I can see each
on a different channel. How do I change it to the other?
I think I'd need to get a three 40Gb drives. One to copy the current data
to, and set the other two up as mirrored, and copy the data back.
You'd only need two new drives for the array... copy the data from the
old drives to one of the new... Not moving it, just copy it. Now,
depending on the abilities of the RAID controller (and it's bios-code)
you may be able to assign the new drive as one of a mirrored-set, and
choose to "rebuild" the array onto the second new drive, and you're
done. If you can't rebuild the array onto a second drive, or define
the array without wiping out the data, then you'd need to copy the
data again if necessary, making sure the new drive has the data
intact, and erase the old drives' array, then create a new array on
them as a span (if you want to reuse the present motherboard then
create a single volume spanning both old drives) or if you want a new
motherboard, create two single-drive spans, one on each drive. Either
way, you then have 40GB of space to copy back the data. Single-drive
spans are, AFAIK, transferrible to any other IDE controller the same
as if it weren't RAID-related at all, meaning it could be attached to
a new board's IDE port to copy the data to the larger drive array.
After confirming that the data is now again intact on the 2 old drives
as a span(s), you have both new drives available to create the
mirrored array on them.
Can I use the same drives for SATA RAID later, or are they special ones?
There's nothign special about SATA RAID, you just need the SATA
adapter another poster mentioned previously.
I
have seen SATA drives listed to buy seperately from ATA. If I can use them
again, I might get 60Gb instead.
You need at least one PATA drive, to be able to copy off your data
from the array on your current motherboard, then to use that new PATA
drive on a SATA controller, you'll need an adapter. The second drive
could be SATA.
When partitioning mirrored drives, is it done both at the same time, or each
one seperately? I use Partition Magic.
Once you have defined the drive-set as a mirror, that array is treated
as a single drive.
Dave
) but I