Seagate vs. Western Digital, upgrade to lrgr HD?

raevon1

You are right, with RAID0, when one of the hard drives fail, all the data is lost and is not recoverable.

You can replace the one HD that failed, with a matching 160gb HD and it need not be the same make.

 No problem, the XPS G5 can support 2x500gb SATA hard drives.

Both Western Digital and Seagate make excellent drives, but I prefer Seagate, as I like their five year warranty.

As the XPS G5 was configured with XP, you may find it easier to reinstall XP, as Dell has the drivers and applications for XP only.  There are no Vista drivers for the XPS G5.

Yes, you will need to manually reinstall XP, all the drivers and applications, as you wish to use RAID1, an internal floppy drive is required to load the driver.

Bev.

Hi Bev,

Thanks for your reply, it was very helpful. What do you mean "an internal floppy drive is required to load the driver"? The driver for RAID1? Are you saying that I'll also have to install a floppy drive (I have a bay for it, so not a problem there) instead of downloading a driver or using a CD? If that's correct, where will I get the floppy disk w/ the driver on it? Sorry for being so obtuse, I just didn't anticipate ever needing a floppy again!Is there any reason I can't just pop one of the floppy drives out of one of my old PCs?

Also, when you say it will be easier to use the drivers for XP, is that because some of the items I need drivers for never came out w/ them for Vista? I've encountered this will other things, like my older digital camera; I can only use it with my XP desktop, not my Vista laptop.

Thanks again.

Kelly

Hello raevon1, I have used both brands and run benchmark test on both brands of the 500GB 7200 rpm modles, and found the Seagate to be quieter and faster, and as Bev mentioned, they have a 5 year warranty. Hard drives seem to be a user preference choice however. I can tell you that in 28 years of computing, I personally, have never had a hard drive failure. This is not the norm however. I have replaced hundreds for others. Hope this helps.

You sure have been lucky, I've had a new hard drive, suffer a catastrophic failure in less than 30 days of receiving the computer and many others fail within three years. :emotion-4:

Bev.

Hello raevon1, I have used both brands and run benchmark test on both brands of the 500GB 7200 rpm modles, and found the Seagate to be quieter and faster, and as Bev mentioned, they have a 5 year warranty.

Hard drives seem to be a user preference choice however.

I can tell you that in 28 years of computing, I personally, have never had a hard drive failure.

This is not the norm however. I have replaced hundreds for others.

Hope this helps.

raevon1

You only need to install a floppy drive temporarily, to install the RAID driver and you should be able to use a floppy drive from another system.

See HERE

The driver can be downloaded from HERE

All the XPS G5 drivers and applications are HERE

More information about installing RAID, are on pages 16 to 25 of the XPS G5 Owner's Manual.

Regards to using Vista, Dell has not published any XPS G5 drivers for Vista, only the drivers for XP.

Bev.

Thanks so much for the input; I looked at other forums and the consensus seems to be Seagate over WD.

raevon1

Wow! Thanks for the help, this is why forums are great. I don't know how I'd have figured this out otherwise.

raevon1

Wow! Thanks for the help, this is why forums are great. I don't know how I'd have figured this out otherwise. raevon1

Happy to have helped.

Bev.

Hey Bev (or anyone else who might have a solution...!),

I have been trying to get this system running for a few weeks now and it doesn't matter what I change, it still won't work. Here's what I'm trying to do, and what I've tried:

The system before it failed: Dell XPS Gen 5 desktop w/ RAID 0 originally installed on two WD Caviar 160 GB HDs, 2GB RAM, Win XP Pro, Bios A03 (latest update BIOS is A04)

One of the HDs failed, so I removed it and intended to replace it with two new WD 500GB drives that match the specs of the original 160s, arranged as RAID1 for data storage, and to use the remaining 160GB drive for the OS and applications. I'm pretty comfortable mucking about inside the system, so the physical install went smoothly, and I was able to pop in an old floppy drive to install the RAID driver, selected RAID in the system setup, selected the 160GB drive as non-raid, and the two 500GB drives as RAID1.

The system sees them correctly, and I'm able to do the install of the RAID drivers using the F6 install method. I've reset the CMOS several times during the process of trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I've also physically uninstalled the 160GB drive, in desperation, thinking I'd just set up the other two; no dice. I've since decided that it's not the issue, so I've reinstalled it. I've tried to install the whole shebang as non-raid, no dice. If it's impossible to set up this system with three drives, one non-raid with OS and apps, and two larger ones set up as RAID1, I can live with that, but I have to get this system up and running asap. The problem is that I cannot get past the Windows Setup screen, it won't accept any input, I can't enter, hit "R" or F3 out, it just doesn't respond. I've also been able (in some of the dozens of cycles of trying different tweaks) to get to the EULA, but the system will not accept Enter and move on from there, either.

Can anyone provide any direction or insight into what else I can try? I was so desperate, I tried to install Windows ME, but got the notice that there was still information on the drive and/or partitions, so I didn't go any further. At this point, I could really use a step by step set of directions, since I've done everything I can think of and nothing is working. To make matters worse, I seem to have forgotten all my DOS knowledge, so I can't even remember how to navigate around in it to figure things out better. Any help would be sincerely appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Kelly

Unless you have an upgrade version of Vista, I don't know why you would want to waste your time with XP. I upgraded a Dimension E510 to Vista with no problem. Just first get the XP drivers from Dell. Then if you have a problem with anything download the lastest drivers from the vendors. Remember Vista contains many new drivers that are not in XP.