Re: (2nd) HDD Format & Setup Suggestions Please

Thanks for your input Tim! I really appreciate it. Would like to hear a few
others suggestions also please just so I can see the moral majority
suggestions, no offense to anyone's opinion(s) of course! :o)

I am guessing it may be getting to the point of failure, when the system
completes the BIOS Post, makes the strangest sound, but once only. I'd like
to keep it online to use for temp stuff, paging file would be best I think. I
use offline back-up with Quicken (10GB storage limit), I have an APC UPS also.

What is ---> "Copy off / zip / NTBackup" Is this the WinXP backup?

Ok, so I can start out with one Volume as "C" and then make more partitions
afterwards? Sounds easier to me as long as there is an aggravated chance of
the drive crashing and my losing all data already loaded on the new drive.

No, I thought the same thing in terms of the page file size. The max RAM I
can have on this board is 1.5GB anyway, so the huge 5GB page file didn't make
sense to me at all. PerfMon proved that very quickly while running quite a
few programs in sucsession. So, the best option would be to rid everything
from my old HD and use it for my Page file I assume and also in terms of
latency for accessing the page file, yes?

SATA RAID, yep, agree too but this system was in exchange for payment of a
small security system I installed and it was a better one than the old
Gateway crap I had. ;o)

For the separate backup of Data only. What do you suggest in a nutshell that
the "Data" contain for back up on a daily basis? I am probably backing up way
too much currently with my online service.

As for the pirated copy, shooting it I can do. *Where I live that is! ;o)
Guess, I'll see how the ole 44 mag is doing tomorrow.

"Tim" wrote:

> I would do this....
>
> > My plan is to disconnect the existing HD while I format and install XP on
> > the new HD, then connect back up, is this ok to do? Should I keep the old
> > HD
> > on the secondary IDE and the bootable CD-ROM and new HD on the Primary IDE
> > for better performance? Both HD's would be jumpered as Masters correct?
>
> Treat the install process as a new system install with your new fresh copy
> of XP while the old HDD is disconnected.
>
> When the new install is 100% connect Old HDD on the Primary IDE channel as
> SLAVE (you could connect it elsewhere, but you may lose CD's or DVD-RW) then
> Copy off / zip / NTBackup the old HDD & if it is failing throw it out after
> stomping on it a lot.
>
> Don't worry about paritioning before starting XP install. During the install
> process you will have a screen where you nominate where to install XP - via
> that screen you can whatever partitions you need. For the purposes of
> Install, create the C drive partition only with the correct size leaving
> room for the other partition(s) - you can create the others after you are up
> and running using Disc Management (in Computer Management in Administrative
> tools). IF you do it this way, the partition will be set active correctly.
>
> This:
>
> > I would like to have the paging file on it's own partition. Does it matter
> > where this is partitioned on the HD? Size of partition? A network engineer
> > suggested to me to make it 5GB.
>
> is a complete waste of time as it will guarantee Drive Seeks for the swap
> file will have to go further down the disc and so slow the system. If you
> have another disc drive (physical disc) then you can set the page file
> there. If this disc is on the same IDE channel, this is a waste of time
> again. (If you had a SCSI setup, it would be quite different.)
>
> The best performance gain you will get on this system is the new disc drive.
> It is higly likely to be significantly faster than the old. Personally I
> would have considered SATA disc drives on a low cost SATA RAID controller
> (they cost peanuts).
>
> Do you have 5GB of RAM? No... Let windows manage it for you, just make sure
> your C drive is large enough for Windows + Apps + Page File + Hyber File (if
> you want ot allow Hybernate) + Free Space. It is rare to find applications
> that need a big swap file. If you do have one then this is fine, but
> otherwise the general rule is to let Windows manage it for you - the default
> page file size in MB = MemorySizeInMB x 1.5 + 2MB and should be on C so that
> post mortem dumps can be written there. IF the machine was previously a
> server - esp a file sharing server, the advice may have been good then with
> a server OS, but your workload is quite different in nature.
>
> You would be best to look at the PerfMon (performance monitor - in
> Administrative Tools under XP / W2K) statistics and make a qualified
> judgement on what is doing what using what resources when the system is up
> and running. You can always move swap files to different partitions later -
> sort of.
>
> > Besides that, should I have more partitions than that as to not create a
> > disaster later on down the road?
>
> Backups! Offsite Backups! UPS! :) My preference is to store data in a data
> partition, and backup all of that partition daily. It does take some effort.
> Depending on system size and backup capability to know well what software is
> installed, CD keys, CD's are at hand and have backup copies and take the
> attitude that loss of the system volume (C) will require a reinstall,
> reconfigure and then restore of data only. "Home" Systems tend to be too big
> to backup completely so a separate partition for Data is always a good idea.
> Use partitions when it makes sense / has benefits, not to complicate things
> or force longer seeks.
>
> > Lastly, what methos should I use in formatting, etc? Should I use the XP
> > CD,
>
> Use the XP CD during setup - only keep the pirated copy as long as it takes
> to get everything off it then shoot it (fdisk) and stomp on the drive :)
>
> > WD software or Disk Management in the existing pirated copy?
> >
> > After all is said and done, I'd like to scrub and reformat the existing HD
> > for other uses. Will I need to install XP on that drive or will it use the
> > XP
> > copy on my new HD?
> >
> > Thanks all for reading and any help you can give to this HD newbie. I am
> > sure I have a few things backwards in my description above.
>
>
>
.

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