Trying to make a decision about HDs for a new computer, and would appreciate input from you savvy lads.

What I have now is Win 98SE on a 10G drive that's getting full. I have a sh*tload of programs, but nothing too bulky as it's mostly business stuff. Not a gamer, have no movies, and picture files are on a family PC with more drive space. I'm thinking that with Win XP Pro, 80G ought to be enough.

Goals and concerns are:

-- Copying my current HD to a new one without having to reinstall the OS. Would Norton Ghost permit this?

-- Upgrading OS to XP Pro rather than doing a new install, because I have some client programs installed that would be difficult to re-install on a fresh OS.

-- Would like to have two drives with a RAID 1 setup, i.e., mirror images of the drives in case of failure. Anything tricky about setting this up or copying the initial mirror? If I do this, can I forget about other backup?

-- My new motherboard will take 4 Ultra ATA IDE drives (up to DMA 133) or 2 SATA drives. Any reason not to go with SATAs?


As far as brands go, I'm looking at Seagate Barracuda SATA drives. Have seen some 80G ones cheap on eBay and from limited research they are fast, quiet, and run at low temps. Is this an OK choice?

Looking forward to your comments and suggestions,


Pete

your 80 seagate sata drive choice is spot on the raid 1 is simple to do a simple touch of a button in the setup menu. not keen on this whole porting accross of your old operating system your gunna have trouble with this more trouble than just installing new programs on a fresh copy of xp

Yeah, I'd go for a full fresh OS and scrap eveything prior - no conflicts then.

Pat...

Ah this easy! Even I did it!

Get your new drive and set it up as a your IDE 1 master then your old drive as your IDE 1 slave.

Boot up with your XP disc at the ready and your pooter wont knw it has an operating system - istall Win Xp onto your new drive and all your old files will be on drive "D" or whatever it will call it when XP is finished!

Or did you know that already?!

Geoff

quote:

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Originally posted by pbura
Copying my current HD to a new one without having to reinstall the OS. Would Norton Ghost permit this?

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in general you are facing with 2 problems..

you want to use win98se installation with new hardware...

or you want to install xp on an Raid 1 config (mirror)

well listen:
the mirror config you can forget wy? asslong as you build it the hardware way, then the computer even doesn't know it are 2 pysycal disc. soow win98se runs fine on it..

If i was you i did the following.

make your new pc that way that you use 2 80Gb in mirror (its the most expensive way of storage) sow 80GB effective on that copy the ghost image file...

install xp prof on it..
etc. etc. and then install all the programs back to xp and copy data back (from the image file you could copy allot)

make a list (screenshots from software list) what you need to install again on XP
offcourse its better to start with all when you haveall the disc etc.

On the hard drive brand, i wouldn't buy an 2nd hand but a new one..i would choose maxtor or Western Digital or IBM..

no seagate for me..(get hot)etc..

if they are on ebay then it has some reasons???

Tks

[Edited on 26/6/05 by tks]

Couldn't keep it in my pants, and I bought the Seagate 80G drives already. Getting a bit tired of shopping, I guess, because the are refurbished and I could have bought new a little cheaper if I'd taken the time to do my homework Heat shouldn't be a problem according to some tests I read the other day, just a few degrees F higher than a Maxtor.

Re-installs of all the apps would be very difficult, so I'm committed for now to the upgrade path. Not the best way, I know. I tried upgrading Windows before, going from Win 95 to 98, and wound up doing a fresh install. I'll keep the 98SE drive just in case I run into too much trouble.

Hmm, in fact I'll probably not change OS right away until I'm sure the hardware's working OK.

Thanks for your feedback!

Problem with relying on the mirror for your backup is you have no fall back against accidentally (or malicously) deleted files as they will be deleted from both disks in the mirror set......

You're right, Dave, mirroring is not exactly backup. Thanks for the reality check.

In the distant mists of memory, I recall having problems with disks created from a total system backup, leading to a full re-install. Also, it seems that most of the HD wipeouts I've been acquainted with have been from mechanical failure.

Am I wrong in thinking that counting on backup for a painless system restore is iffy?

Edit: Your point is duly noted. I'll start with using one of the drives for backup, and watch for a cheap IDE that I can use for backup only.

From there, can I configure the SATAs as RAID 0 and count on my backup, or should I stick with RAID 1 for further protection?

[Edited on 27/6/05 by pbura]

Whatever you decide to do, burn all your documents/pictures onto a removeable media, cd or dvd before you do anything
Then no !!

quote:

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Originally posted by ReMan
Whatever you decide to do, burn all your documents/pictures onto a removeable media, cd or dvd before you do anything
Then no !!

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I'd still recommend a proper back up onto a removeable media of some kind, before you start cloning, mirroring and tinkerring with things thaty could break if there was a power cut int the middle of doing it?

Good point, because Murphy's a bastard.