New Hard Drive Installation

I have now been successful in cloning my old C hard drive to a new F hard drive. Before I remove the drives and install the new F drive as my new C drive is there anyway I can change the letter assignment for the F drive to C before trying to boot it up. I have been told that my system will recognized this new hard drive as the C hard drive without changing the letter assingment because the new hard drive is an exact copy (clone) of the old C drive. Anyone have any thoughts to share on the subject?

 

Yes it will, if and only if it was fdisked or preped as a primary partition. Some/most Cloning software does this!

When you install it do not try to slave the old at the same time if you plan to do that.

So jumper it to single drive and try to boot.

If it does not boot then it is not a primary.

If it does boot and you want to slave the old drive then rejumper it to master with slave, then rejumper the old to a slave.

Or if you have a spare IDE connector you can install the old to this as a seconday.

Mike

 

Thanks Mike. By secondary, are your referring to secondary master on a separate IDE or what?? I may just leave the old drive out until I need it, if ever. Since I install the second drive my drives seem to be running hotter then before about 118F. Of course I don't know if that's really hotter or not since I didn't know the temperature of the drive when it was the only drive installed. Do you think 118F is to hot for a drive with a high range limit of 131F?

Bob

 

Temp is within range.

Yes I was refering to seperate cable.

If you now have huge capacity in comparison to the old I would leave it out.

Mike

 

Well so much for the theory of cloning or copying old drive to new drive and install the new drive as a single drive and everything will be ok. I just tried it and just as I suspected the operating system could not be found. You see I know I could install the operating system, but I don't have it. All I got is the recovery CD's and to use them will totally reformat my drive back to day one and It would take me a week to bring my computer back up to speed or the way it was before. Don't any of you computer greeks know how I can get around this mess? Why do the hard drive manufacturers act like it's no big deal to change these drives out? Because if apparently is a big deal. Like I said,if you don't care to start over every time its no big deal.

Help!!!

 

Well I told you in my message!

You didn't ask me how to do it, you had already done it, you asked me if it would work and I said "if and only if" , remember?

So here is how to do it.

1. jumper the new Drive as primary master.

2. unhook old drive IDE cable from motherboard primay master connecter.

3. connect new drive to this

4. run you HD installation software, do not try to clone yet

5. make sure it will boot to c:\ (remember old drive is disconnected)

6. unhook CD Rom cable hook up old hd to this (should change jumpers back to original as master).

7. boot up and run the clone software and copy old to new.

8. remove old drive cable replace to CD

9. reboot to new drive

10. After sucess remove old drive from case or leave in but unplug power.

Mike

 

PS will be away for a few hours.

If you have more problems then perhaps someone else will help. If not will check back in couple hrs.

mike

 

Sorry about all that. I thought you knew that I had already used a program to clone my old drive. Anyway my problem with your instructions is that I don't have the installation software I need from the manufacturer to do the cloning you are telling me to do. The software I got with the new drive does not work for NTFS and I have tried a hundred times to download the software I need from Western Digital and create the floppy I need with no luck. So needless to say, but I will not be trying what you told me until I can get a copy of the software to work right. The other clone software that I used is called DrvClonerXP. Have you ever heard of this cloner. It seem worked, but the way I used it was to copy the old master drive to the new slave drive. Are you familiar with this software?

 

Had a couple phone calls delayed in leaving!

Yes I did know you were cloning you told me so in first message. In fact, that you were successful! You did not say what you were using or how you were doing it.

The problem you have is not propely peparing the drive to Boot as the primay drive first.

Now you mention XP!

Well that is one reason that the Western Digital Data Life Guard tools will not make. They have to be made on a win98 computer. Get some one to make them for you in Win98.

Or do this!

Use a win98 boot disk. Get one here if you don't have one : http://www.dewassoc.com/support/useful/boot_disks.htm

Install the new drive only, as in my last message.

Then boot to dos run FDISK create 1 primary partition of say 8g.
then format it with system. Then make sure it boots to it.

Then hook up old hd as I wrote and use the clone Xp etc to make the drive.

After it is up you can use XP to create the other partitions.

Mike

Now I am outta here.......................

 

6. unhook CD Rom cable hook up old hd to this (should change jumpers back to original as master).

Mike, I'm a little confused about number 6 of your instructions. Let me see if I understand. You want me to use my CD Rom IDE connector and change jumper on back to original as master. My jumper on the back of the original drive is set as master. I don't know when I changed the jumper on the original drive to begin with. So I guess it will be ok. By the way I know you are wanting me to use the cable so I guess it doesn't make any difference that I have a DVD and a CD/RW on this connector.

Anyway I think you are saying that both of my drive will be set as masters, but on diffierent IDE connectors. My new drive will be on the IDE connector that my old drive was on and the old drive will be on the IDE connector that my DVD & CD/RW drive are on. That's a lot of on's

Do I need to use the IDE connector for my DVD and CD/CW for my original drive or can I connect the original drive as a slave on the IDE connector that the new drive is on.

By the way, I only have my old drive running now and my drive temperature is showing 100F. The second drive running adds anywhere from13 to 18 degrees more. That's a little on the hot side. I'm going to leave one of these drive unplugged.

 

Ok the new drives spin faster run faster and hotter! BTW what speed/size is the drive? Udma 133 7200 rpm 80G?

The logic is to get the new drive booting to a c: prompt without the old drive attached.

Then to temporarily borrow the IDE connecteor long enough to tranfer the files? Then hook the CD back up!

DriveCloner has been discontinued by its creator due to problems. What other cloner S/W do you have.

And did you get the WD disks made on a win98 machine because it has a drive cloner also?

Do you know how to use FDISK and format to prep the new disk?

Perchance do you have Partition Magic or Drive Image?


Mike

 

Well first thing first. No I didn't get the WD disks made on a win98 machine. I'm trying to get my nephew across the street to create it for me.

I have never copied or install a new drive. I did use XP tools to format and partition the new drive after I install it on my system.

The reason I'm trying to use the clone or copy method on for my new drive is that in addition to my OS and other data being on my old drive in a NTFS file system. My system recovery software is also on the old drive in a FAT32 file.

No I do not have Partition Magic or Drive Image. I was hoping that DrvCloner would work. It did work, but I don't a way to boot to the OS and I don't have any XP CD's thanks to HP.

 

Well we could do it the hard way but the WD disks are the best way so I say wait untill you get them.

Just remember 1 step at a time.

Unplug the old and get the new HD working and booting to the command prompt first.

Then unhook CD use WD disks to copy from old to new.

NOTE: After copy from old to new disconnect old drive before boot to new drive!!!!!!

Let me know something.

Mike

 

What is the word? Thunderbird?

Mike

 

Well I'm back. I finally got a floppy created from Western Digital uitility software. I think I now ready to try the installation. The following are your instructions for the installation:

. jumper the new Drive as primary master.

2. unhook old drive IDE cable from motherboard primay master connecter.

3. connect new drive to this

4. run you HD installation software, do not try to clone yet

5. make sure it will boot to c:\ (remember old drive is disconnected)

6. unhook CD Rom cable hook up old hd to this (should change jumpers back to original as master).

7. boot up and run the clone software and copy old to new.

8. remove old drive cable replace to CD

9. reboot to new drive

10. After sucess remove old drive from case or leave in but unplug power.

You never did tell me if I could add the old drive as a slave to copy from rather then using my DVD cable hook up.

 

Are you still going to remove the old drive from the system after you are finished?

If you want to do it that (the hard way) way go ahead. Why rejumper 2 drives twice.

All this preping and cloning/copying the old to the new occurs in DOS anyway! Can't play music or watch a movie while you are doing it anyway.

I recomend you do it like I said!

mike