Which Harddrive Do I Install XP On?

Currently, XP Home is installed on a 60 gig Maxtor, 133 Ultra DMA, with a 2 MB cache.

I just recently purchased an 80 gig WD Caviar, 100 Ultra DMA, with an 8 MB cache.


Does the Maxtor's Ultra 133 DMA cancel out the 8 MB cache in the WD?

These are 7200 RPM, EIDE drives, BTW.



Thanks.

 

They found that 133 DMA was not significantly faster than 100. As you can see, some manufacturers have not bothered to go to 133.

The larger cache should offer a lot more benefit.

Matt

 

Which hard drive do I install

The cache on the hard drive is independant of another hard drive. It is the function of that hard drive. Whenever you access that drive it uses its built in cache.
If your not clear as to this explanation do a little research on want cache does.
Hope this is of some help

 

I'm using cable select on both drives, and in order to make the WD a master drive the EIDE ribbon connectors will have to be reversed?

 

Yes, but if you look at the HDD manufacturer's setup instructions, they will probably recommend to use Master/Slave jumper settings.

Are you planning to do a clean/fresh install of Windows on the WD drive or copying the current Windows install to the new drive? If you are going to do a clean install, I recommend that you leave the old drive disconnected until Windows is "up and running ", then connect it.

Matt

 

Cable select

Because you are using cable select for your drives, the position of your connector determines your master or slave drive. Position your larger cache drive as master. The middle drive connector is your slave.

 

So it is best to swap the connectors, as well as the jumper settings too?

A clean install.

I was going to delete & reformat the old C drive before installing XP on the WD.

C partition will be on the WD, while D, E, and F partitions will remain on the Maxtor. The space remaining on the two physical drives will be used for music files & such.

I presume this configuration is OK?

 

Cable Select

Leave both drives as cable select, Your cmos settings (which you dont have to touch) will automatically detect the master drive (the last connector on the ribbon)
Use which ever drive a your master insert you xp software and reinstall.
It can be tricky a this point so format your drive 1st with windows in the slave position. Then when you reboot remove it from slave to master drive.
Dont install the other drive just yet leave it out of the computer.After you have your operating system up and running. Shut down and install the slave drive as your storage drive. Your done!

 

Finally installed the OS on the Western Digital.

I don't know too much about HD cache and what it does, but my boot up time has improved quite a bit. Unfortunately, the OS seems to be corrupted. (I went with SP3 RC2 instead of waiting on long download times via Windows Update.)

Guess I'll have to start over again.

 

Wow, XP SP3, RC2 is a very large file (315MB!).

After doing another re-install of the OS, I only needed about 80MB of updates via dial-up...minus RC2 of course.

And the Western Digital is preforming very well so far.

 

I was going to say that it is the best idea not to install a Release Candidate. It is still only in the trial stage.

Good that it seems to be going well now.

Matt

 

Lesson learned.


However, MS Office Pro has things out of whack with their latest updates. I'm getting sys fader hangs at shutdown or restart.

Tried uninstalling Office for the time being, but problems still exist.