Recommend a new hard drive

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Mac Cool

I'm getting a message that my drive is operating outside normal parameters
and that I should back up my data and replace the drive. It is a 2 year
old DiamondMax Plus 40GB.

I would ideally like to copy or ghost the current drive over to a new
drive... do I need to buy the exact same HD to do that?

Norton Ghost is cheap enough at $10 and it looks like it will work on
drives of different sizes. Any alternatives I should consider?

I have owned Quantum, Maxtor, Western Digital and few others, none have
ever failed on me until now. My current 40GB drive is only 2/3 full and
that just installed programs and games, very little else will ever be
installed so I don't need much more space. Any recommendations on current
drives? I don't want to spend over $100. Performance is important but I
don't want a turbine engine either ;)
 
Mac Cool said:
I'm getting a message that my drive is operating outside normal parameters
and that I should back up my data and replace the drive. It is a 2 year
old DiamondMax Plus 40GB.

I would ideally like to copy or ghost the current drive over to a new
drive... do I need to buy the exact same HD to do that?

Norton Ghost is cheap enough at $10 and it looks like it will work on
drives of different sizes. Any alternatives I should consider?

I have owned Quantum, Maxtor, Western Digital and few others, none have
ever failed on me until now. My current 40GB drive is only 2/3 full and
that just installed programs and games, very little else will ever be
installed so I don't need much more space. Any recommendations on current
drives? I don't want to spend over $100. Performance is important but I
don't want a turbine engine either ;)
Click to expand...

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=AA17640
 
Mac said:
I'm getting a message that my drive is operating outside normal parameters
and that I should back up my data and replace the drive. It is a 2 year
old DiamondMax Plus 40GB.

I would ideally like to copy or ghost the current drive over to a new
drive... do I need to buy the exact same HD to do that?
No.


Norton Ghost is cheap enough at $10 and it looks like it will work on
drives of different sizes. Any alternatives I should consider?
Click to expand...

As long as the new drive is larger than the old partition there is no
problem and, under the right circumstances, it can resize to a smaller
drive as well but since any new drive will, undoubtedly, be larger than
your current one it's a moot issue.
 
Mac Cool said:
Why are you recommending it, speed, noise, reliability?
Click to expand...

It's double the size of what the OP needs, is a good reliable brand, has an
*8MB* buffer, and is really cheap, as far as hard drives go. -Dave
 
I'm getting a message that my drive is operating outside normal parameters
and that I should back up my data and replace the drive. It is a 2 year
old DiamondMax Plus 40GB.

I would ideally like to copy or ghost the current drive over to a new
drive... do I need to buy the exact same HD to do that?

Norton Ghost is cheap enough at $10 and it looks like it will work on
drives of different sizes. Any alternatives I should consider?

I have owned Quantum, Maxtor, Western Digital and few others, none have
ever failed on me until now. My current 40GB drive is only 2/3 full and
that just installed programs and games, very little else will ever be
installed so I don't need much more space. Any recommendations on current
drives? I don't want to spend over $100. Performance is important but I
don't want a turbine engine either ;)
Click to expand...

When I bought my new drive (a Maxtor) it came with a utility to copy
from the old drive to the new drive. But, you'll probably be better
off installing everything again. I hear all the rage about Norton
Ghost but I found it to be PITA. Look into XCOPY.
 
Mac,
i have had excellent results with wd,seagate and maxtor . no need to
buy ghost they all offer utilities to partition and format your new
drive and copy the contents of the existing drive to the new .
hope this helps,
terry

==============
Posted through www.HowToFixComputers.com/bb - free access to hardware troubleshooting newsgroups.
 
Mac Cool said:
I'm getting a message that my drive is operating outside normal parameters
and that I should back up my data and replace the drive. It is a 2 year
old DiamondMax Plus 40GB.

I would ideally like to copy or ghost the current drive over to a new
drive... do I need to buy the exact same HD to do that?

Norton Ghost is cheap enough at $10 and it looks like it will work on
drives of different sizes. Any alternatives I should consider?

I have owned Quantum, Maxtor, Western Digital and few others, none have
ever failed on me until now. My current 40GB drive is only 2/3 full and
that just installed programs and games, very little else will ever be
installed so I don't need much more space. Any recommendations on current
drives? I don't want to spend over $100. Performance is important but I
don't want a turbine engine either ;)
Click to expand...

I have 2 maxtor diamondmax 9's with 8Mb buffers. One of which is in my
server which is on 24 hours a day. Its the quietest component in there
(after the passive heatsinks).

I too had one of the early 40Gb Maxtor disks, and its the only one to have
failed on me, with the same errors as yours. A month or so after it siezed
completly with a mechanical failiure.

hamman
 
buy ghost they all offer utilities to partition and format your new
drive and copy the contents of the existing drive to the new .
Click to expand...

Terry,

Are talking about the whole enchilada, or data files? I mean, can you clone
you're old drive, including XP, to the new one using the utilities that come
with a new drive?

alby
 
Mac Cool said:
I'm getting a message that my drive is operating outside normal parameters
and that I should back up my data and replace the drive. It is a 2 year
old DiamondMax Plus 40GB.

I would ideally like to copy or ghost the current drive over to a new
drive... do I need to buy the exact same HD to do that?

Norton Ghost is cheap enough at $10 and it looks like it will work on
drives of different sizes. Any alternatives I should consider?
Click to expand...

The drive makers usually have a free program that will copy the information
on one drive to another. I know Maxtor does. Think it is called Maxiblast.
You can download it from their web site. It will make a bootable floppy and
you boot off it and follow the menue and directions depending on what you
want to do.
You do not need the exect drive to use it.
 
It's double the size of what the OP needs, is a good reliable brand,
has an *8MB* buffer, and is really cheap, as far as hard drives go.
Click to expand...

I am the OP. I'm not questioning your judgement, I was just wondering what
you liked about that drive. It looks pretty good to me also.
 
Phisherman said:
I hear all the rage about Norton Ghost but I found it to be PITA.
Click to expand...

I've read many positive comments about Ghost as well but most of the
negative comments came from people using it as a backup utility.
 
| "Dave C." <[email protected]> said:
|
| >> > http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=AA17640
| >>
| >> Why are you recommending it, speed, noise, reliability?
|
| > It's double the size of what the OP needs, is a good reliable brand,
| > has an *8MB* buffer, and is really cheap, as far as hard drives go.
|
| I am the OP. I'm not questioning your judgement, I was just wondering what
| you liked about that drive. It looks pretty good to me also.

Newegg has it for the same price (plus $3 shipping). They also have
the SATA version for $74.75, shipping free.

I've been using one of the regular WD 80G SE drives almost since it
first came out. It's quiet, fast and has never failed to deliver.

The three-year warranty is nice, too!

Larc



§§§ - Change planet to earth to reply by email - §§§
 
Mac Cool said:
I've read many positive comments about Ghost as well but most of the
negative comments came from people using it as a backup utility.
Click to expand...

Hi:
I am constantly puzzled by the continuous negative comments (and frequent
misinformation!) I come across on the various newsgroups that deprecate
Symantec's Norton Ghost program. My experience with that program has been,
and continues to be, completely counter to the negative views expressed by
so many posters. I have often remarked that I wish every software program I
use was as simple, straightforward, and effective to use as the Norton Ghost
program. Let me state at the outset that I use Ghost for one and only one
purpose - to clone the contents of one hard drive to another. By making a
bit-for-bit copy (not technically precise perhaps, but correct for all
practical purposes) of one's working hard drive, you have, what seems to me,
the ultimate backup system. I have used various versions of Ghost over the
years, including the present 2003 version. During that time I estimate I've
cloned various hard drives about a thousand times. And done so with
virtually
zero problems that I could attribute to the software.
Ghost's portability through use of a floppy disk, and ease of use
together with reasonable speed, make it a joy to use.

No doubt you'll receive a variety of responses to a query asking "what's the
best backup program?", each one touting this or that imaging program. And
the likelihood is you won't go wrong with any of the more popular ones.
For myself I prefer Symantec's Norton Ghost program for the reasons noted
above.

Incidentally, for a one-shot deal cloning the contents of an old hard drive
to a new
one, you can use the manufacturer's utility to perform this operation as one
poster
pointed out. All the major hard drive manufacturers package this type of
utility
with their retail (boxed) hard drives. The only negative to them is that
(based upon
my experience) they're glacially slow. The other day I had occasion to use
Maxtor's
utility (MaxBlast) to clone a drive of 8 GB. It took 1 1/2 hours on a P4 2.8
GHz
machine with a modern HDs. It would have taken me about 10 minutes using
Ghost.

Art
 
Dave,
PMFJI, but I'm also in the process of choosing a gard drive. How much
does an 8MB buffer improve performance in general terms? I've seen
these drives costing more than 50% more than the version without the
8mb buffer.

Ally
 
I'm getting a message that my drive is operating outside normal parameters
and that I should back up my data and replace the drive. It is a 2 year
old DiamondMax Plus 40GB.

I would ideally like to copy or ghost the current drive over to a new
drive... do I need to buy the exact same HD to do that?
Click to expand...
One thing you didn't mention is the current o/s that you are using. If
you are using XP there may be other issues to do with product activation
that may give you one or two other problems when replacing a drive.
 
Dave,
PMFJI, but I'm also in the process of choosing a gard drive. How much
does an 8MB buffer improve performance in general terms? I've seen
these drives costing more than 50% more than the version without the
8mb buffer.

Ally
Click to expand...

Generally, it will speed up disk performance slightly. Overall, you
probably won't notice much of a difference. But as it's selling at a lower
price than a lot of 2MB cache drives with the same storage capacity, it's a
heckuva bargain, so buy it anyway. :) -Dave
 
I'm getting a message that my drive is operating outside normal parameters
and that I should back up my data and replace the drive. It is a 2 year
old DiamondMax Plus 40GB.

I would ideally like to copy or ghost the current drive over to a new
drive... do I need to buy the exact same HD to do that?

Norton Ghost is cheap enough at $10 and it looks like it will work on
drives of different sizes. Any alternatives I should consider?

I have owned Quantum, Maxtor, Western Digital and few others, none have
ever failed on me until now. My current 40GB drive is only 2/3 full and
that just installed programs and games, very little else will ever be
installed so I don't need much more space. Any recommendations on current
drives? I don't want to spend over $100. Performance is important but I
don't want a turbine engine either ;)
Click to expand...

Nowadays all the brands are good; I wouldn't worry too much about this. Any
drive can fail before its time, so maybe the warranty is the most important
factor all other things equal.

As for the cloning, get a free trial of BootitNG. With new drive as slave,
boot the BootitNG floppy, cancel install, go into maintenance/partition
work . . . . Then in View MBR, highlight your new C: partion and click Set
Active and Write Standard MBR. Then swap the disks, disconnect the old one
so that you boot up w/ only the new disk and you should be fine, avoiding
having the wrong drive letter (PITA).

Afterwards you can also use BootitNG to resize the clusters before
converting to NTFS if you want to.

W/ Ghost, use the option flags -FDSP.
 
J. S. Pack said:
maybe the warranty is the most important
factor all other things equal.
Click to expand...

The warranty became the deciding factor. I was deciding between a Western
Digital and Maxtor. The Maxtor was a smidgeon faster but had a one year
warranty; the WD had a 3 year warranty. To me, it translates that WD has
more faith in their drives than Maxtor does. If my drive that is failing
was a Western Digital, it would still be under warranty.
 
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