Swapping out C: drive

If you do a search you will find lots of different approaches to this procedure. Based on my recent similar experience, I would temporarily make the new drive the 'slave' then format it and clone the old to the new and then take both of them out and put the new one in the primary (master) position without the old one, to be sure it works. Then you can reformat the old drive to get the OS off of it if you wish.

Regardless of what the WD instructions say, I think you will need to have both drives set to 'cable select' to work with the way your 4600 is set up.

Rob

Rob,

Thanks for the reply. In the past, I've done exactly as you've stated -- stuck the new drive in as the slave (D:), used the Western Digital software to prepare the drive and copy over everything from the master (C:), then powered everything down and swapped 'em. Never had a problem, but then again, I've never tried it with an XP system, so I thought it was worth asking.

I'll search for other messages just for the heck of it.

Thanks again! --Bill R.

P.S. I thought my system was pretty hot, until I read the specs on yours. Impressive to say the least!

Message Edited by videojanitor on 12-14-2003 02:43 AM

Bill R-

If you have software such as Drive Image 7 or Norton Ghost, you might want to create a good image of the drive you want to copy to the new disk, just in case you have trouble with the Western Digital software. When I recently installed my 2 new Seagate drives I somehow created a mess trying to use the Seagate program to copy from my old drive, and ended up having to do a clean windows installation, which, as I'm sure you know, takes forever to get everything back the way you want it. Good luck!

Rob

P.S. How do you like your 4600 so far? Very happy with mine!

Message Edited by robnalex on 12-14-2003 11:49 AM

Ron,

Unfortunately, I don't have either of those disk utilities, so I guess I will take my chances.   Since my system is pretty new (only had it about two weeks), I really haven't installed that much on it (I've been taking it slow), so if I HAD to start over from scratch, it wouldn't be too bad. Since I am already re-installing/reconfiguring everything that was on my old machine, I'm pretty much in that boat as it is.

That said, things got a little nuttier today when I opened the paper saw CompUSA selling the WD 160GB "special edition" drive for $89 (after rebate of course). At that price, I had to pick one up, and am in the process of installing it as the "D" drive in the 4600. It is formatting as we speak. It's a good thing that I did some research BEFORE I installed it, as the instructions that came with it are woefully out of date. For instance, it states there are NO current operating systems that can recognize a drive larger than 137GB -- well clearly this is not the case, the version of XP that shipped with my 4600 sees it all just fine. And I didn't use any of the software that came with the drive -- I just used the disk management utilities built into XP (as I've seen recommended here and on the WD website).

After reading all this though, I am back to wondering if my plan to "clone" the existing (Hitachi) boot drive over to an 80GB WD drive will be successful when simply using the WD Lifeguard software. I gotta dig around for more on this.

Anyway, as for your question about my 4600, I am quite pleased with it. It makes less than half the noise of my 4100, and I like the way the case is designed (very easy to pull drives in and out) and plethora of USB ports, DVI, etc. I got it with 1GB of RAM, so it definitely feels rather BEEFY. I like everything about it, except that Hitachi drive!

--Bill R.

Bill R-

Sounds like you're on the right track. And you got a good deal on the 160GB drive- same as what I paid for my seagates (after rebates). I hope your new drive is ATA/100 to match the 4600 setup.

Once your drive is formatted (4096 bytes in each allocation unit), Windows will show it at around 149.9GB. This is normal, so don't be alarmed.

Yes...copying the drive is the scary part, but others here have testified to success using the WD software to do it. I hope it all goes smoothly for you...let us know!

Rob

Rob,

The 160GB drive went in like nothin'. Easy as pie (is that easy? I don't know -- never made one). However, I did discover an interesting problem: I tried to copy a 2GB file from the 160GB slave over to the 40GB master, and was promptly told that the transfer was going to take 25 minutes! WHAAAA? I tried the same thing on my old Dimension 4100, and it only took two minutes. So clearly, I messed something up.

Upon examination of the BIOS, it seems as though it was not automatically noticing that there was a drive installed -- it said simply "OFF." I changed that to "AUTO," restarted, and THEN I was getting normal speeds. Going back into the BIOS, it now said "HARD DISK," and it recognized it as 160GB. So, I think I am set there.

What I don't understand about this is, if the BIOS was not set to recognize the drive, how come XP could see it? I always thought that if something was "off" in the BIOS, then there was no way for the OS to know it existed. Guess I was wrong, at least as far as XP goes.

Anyway, to answer your question, I'm fairly certain this WD drive is ATA/100. The box says "Up to 100 MB/s data transfer rate using Ultra ATA/100." Does that sound like the same thing you're talking about?

--Bill R.

Bill R-

Sounds like things are going very well for you, with the exception of that one little glitch. I don't have an answer to why the drive could be recognized when set to 'off' in the bios. You are certainly having a much smoother experience installing your new drive than I did.

It's probably a little late in the process for me to bring this up, but you might want to check to be sure that the formatted drive has 4096 bytes per allocation unit (this assumes you're using NTFS). This is the recommended & default size for larger drives. If you didn't specify otherwise or selected 'default' when you formatted this is probably what you've got.

Oh....and making pie...only did it once, and it's about the same.

Rob

Rob,

Yep, I'm NTFS all the way. Not sure how to check for the number of "bytes per allocation unit," so if you can point me that direction, I'll have a look. I clicked through everything I could find in XP's disk management, and didn't see anything like that.

--Bill R.

Bill R-

I'm sure there is an easier way to find out, but I know this will work:

Run a disk check either from the command prompt or just right click the drive in my computer, then properties, tools, check now. You shouldn't have to check either box (don't check the second box unless you want to wait forever for a surface test to complete). If the first box is check you will have to restart to perform the disk check. When you restart you will see a blue progress screen, and if you watch carefully, when it's done you will see a line that says 'XXXXXX bytes in each allocation unit'. If it goes by too fast and you miss it, do this: Once windows has started go to control panel, computer management, event viewer. Select 'application' then in the list on the right, right-click winlogon and select properties. It will show you everything you missed as the blue screen went by so fast, including the number of bytes in each allocation unit.

Have you got it to boot from the new drive yet?

Rob

Interesting.....I run it with the first box (automatically fix errors) checked and it ALWAYS asks me if I want to schedule the check when windows restarts. Even so, you still should be able to go into event viewer to see a report of the disk check, which should include the number of bytes in each allocation unit.

Actually, here's a better, easier way: Go to command prompt (start/all programs/accessories). Type D: and press enter. At the D: prompt type chkdsk, then press enter. It will scan the disk and you'll be able to see everything!

Rob

Message Edited by robnalex on 12-15-2003 02:31 PM

Rob,

Not so fast!

There's the still the matter of cloning that Hitachi drive (OS and all) over to the (not yet received) WD 80GB drive. Once that is done, then I will be good to go.   I'll let you know how that goes.

--Bill R.

Message Edited by videojanitor on 12-15-2003 03:52 PM

Looks like you're good to go.....congratulations!

Rob,

OK that worked -- 4096 it is. So, all is well.

I think I may know why the first method failed us -- perhaps it is because you're running XP Pro, while I'm using XP Home? Right off the bat, when I go into Control Panel, I don't have an item called "Computer Management" -- I've got "Administrative Tools," which is where I found the "Event Viewer," but that's probably only one of many such differences.

--Bill R.

Oh....forgot about that....that will be the real fun part. Why don't you throw another 160GB drive in instead? Nice to have a matched pair, don't you think?  And I find the 160GB drive to be a bit faster than my original 80GB. But then some people are more sane and practical than me!

Rob