Author Topic: Hard Drives..external..? (Read 149 times)

BGBMAW · « **on:** May 30, 2006, 01:44:36 PM »

Having some storage issues...AH takes up alot of space.

I have a really crappy 20 gig internal hard drive..

Whats best option...

1) buy external
2) replace internal

DO you have to Load windows onto new hard drive?..even if its an external hard drive?

Do they plug into usb?

pros..cons?

thanks for anhy help

Maverick · « **Reply #1 on:** May 30, 2006, 01:49:52 PM »

If you have another internal HD bay get an internal drive. Make it a slave to the small one you have now, no worries after that. If you go external it will be more expensive and slower.

In either case unless you are replacing your boot drive you do not have to put windows on the second drive. Just format it before you start using it. Format the second drive, not the boot drive.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #2 on:** May 30, 2006, 01:55:54 PM »

get an internal (there not cooped up in a small box getting hot)

set the jumper on your 20 gig to master and on the second hd set it to slave .

Airscrew · « **Reply #3 on:** May 30, 2006, 01:59:41 PM »

what Mav said, especially Format the second drive, not the boot drive.. I'll say one thing though; forget this once, you'll never forget it again.

Internal. Mav, last couple of times I've upgraded hard drives, I've loaded Windoze on the new drive and then cleaned up and used the older drive as storage. Just a thought, I kinda think of it as rotating tires on the car, maybe the HD's will last longer. dont know havent have a failure yet

Chairboy · « **Reply #4 on:** May 30, 2006, 02:38:09 PM »

I'm gonna go against the flow here. Buy a USB 2.0 HD enclosure off eBay for $20 and put the drive in it instead. The interface is faster than the max speed of the HD, so you won't notice a speed difference (USB 2.0 is 480mbs, modern drives are usually in the 133 range). It won't be faster, of course, but it'll be just as fast.

If you're up for refreshing your system, then by all means, mount the new drive internally, install everything to it, then put the old drive in the external enclosure and use it for data. 20 gigs of portable storage is handy to have in a crunch.

I have an external USB drive on my main comp where I store most of my media, and I have another one in my car computer. Whenever I want to update my car computer stuff, I bring the HD inside, plug it into USB, and am manipulating the data seconds later.

Eagler · « **Reply #5 on:** May 30, 2006, 02:47:27 PM »

everything will default to your c drive so you'll have to change that to point to your new D drive when you get prompted during an install ...

setting jumpers to master and slave is the best way to go
get the biggest/best drive you can afford - they are cheap these days

then open up windows and from control panel go to Admin Tools/Computer Management / Disk management. There, find your new drive and format it to NTFS format or whatever format it shows your c drive as being. Drive D should be your Disk 1 as your drive c should show as Disk 0. Right click on new drive and select format ..

as for brands: Seagate, Western Digital or Maxtor are my picks in that order

edit:
above is a two hd scenerio .. replacing your existing hd with a new larger one would require a disk copy type app like ghost.
the two drive setup would be easier to do but depending on the state of your current drive, it may be better to switch over to a new larger/faster drive for everything