Multiple Hard Drive Questions

[emac921]

I have a question for you fellows. My system is as follows;
"C" Drive - 4.3 Gig with Win98 SE plus all other applications, drivers etc
"D" Drive - 10 Gig with games only
"E" drive - Syquest 1.0 gig parallel port external
"F" 48X CD Rom
The "C" and "E" drives are on the same cable - 40 wire ATA33
The "D" drive is on it's own cable - 80 wire ATA66

I just bought a new Maxtor 30 Gig drive which I want to install as extra storage, along with a new 80 wire ATA66
cable.

I would like to keep the original "C" drive as the boot drive - is this the right approach? Or I could fdsik and format the new drive, then copy all the original files to
it and make it the boot disk.

I don't want to be in the position where I can't get back into the computer if I screw things up, so I keep the old "C" drive as a backup, on the shelf so to speak.

Can I get some real good instructions on what to do and how to set up the drives on (2) ATA 66 cables, what on what cable etc. Thanks for your help

[Dharma Lion]

i am a little confused...how can your c: and E: drives be on the same cable if the E: drive is on an external parrallel. that doesnt make sense.

1.keep the c: drive as the primary(master) active drive on the primary IDE channel.
2.cd-rom as the master on the secondary IDE channel.
3.new 30gig ATA66 as the master on the primary ATA66 channel.
4.10 gig as the master on the secondary ATA66
5.Syquest - leave it alone, if it really is external then it doesnt matter.

looks like you have the right idea if i am understanding you correctly. if what you want is to transfer your system files over to the new drive then i would suggest using a program called ghost...im sure that if you search the forums you will find many more post with details about this program.
windows will boot to the active drive regardless of the physical location of that drive

[reboot]

Put your new drive as primary master, with all other IDE drives removed.
Boot to the startup disk, fdisk, MAKE ACTIVE, and format the drive. Sys the drive to make it bootable.
Install it as secondary master.
Install your old C as primary master (C again).
Opy EVERYTHING from C to the new drive, EXCEPT the Recycle bin, and a file called "win386.swp" found in c:\windows
Swap the drives, or pull out your old one and put it on the shelf, and install the new drive as primary master.
You now have EXACTLY what you had before, just on a bigger/different drive.
Put your other ATA 66 drive on the same cable as your new drive, so they both run at ATA66.
Put your syquest and CD-ROM back in on the secondary's.
Double check jumper settings for master/slave!!!

[Jade]

I too have almost a similiar set up.

IDE1 10G master(nothing else)

IDE2 Cdrom Master 20G slave

SCSI Burner
_______

What would be the bonus for putting the 20G slave as master on IDE1 for me? doesn't it take longer to search the bigger the drive. I leave C as empty as I can and null the swap file by putting a set value. (I have 576RAM ) put secondary programs on 20G (d: partition).

Would the same work for me?


And Darma lion in your recommendations I could be mistaken but are you asking for 4 masters?

[Dharma Lion]

Originally posted by Jade I too have almost a similiar set up. IDE1 10G master(nothing else) IDE2 Cdrom Master 20G slave SCSI Burner _______ What would be the bonus for putting the 20G slave as master on IDE1 for me? doesn't it take longer to search the bigger the drive. I leave C as empty as I can and null the swap file by putting a set value. (I have 576RAM ) put secondary programs on 20G (d: partition). Would the same work for me? And Darma lion in your recommendations I could be mistaken but are you asking for 4 masters?

yup..i sure am...i am assuming the the ata66 is not on the motherboard but is in fact a card that was added to the machine later, or in the case of the Abit BP6, is literaly seperate from the standard IDE controllers. ex:

ide00(ata33) primary/secondary
ide01(ata33) primary/secondary
ide02(ata66) primary/secondary
ide03(ata66) primary/secondary

thats a possible total of 8 devices, 4 of which can be set as master. why set them as master...faster drive to drive transfers

[glc]

Put an 80 wire cable on the primary ATA66 controller (blue end to the controller), put the new drive on the BLACK connector at the other end, and put the 4.3 gig drive on the middle GRAY connector. Jumper BOTH drives to "Cable Select" and boot with your Maxblast disk. If you don't have one, download it from Maxtor's site. Do a fully automatic setup, and allow it to copy the 4.3 gig drive to the new drive. Then remove the 4.3 gig drive and move the 10 gig "D" drive over to the gray connector on the primary cable, also jumpered to Cable Select. This will keep it as the "D" drive. You can then rejumper your CD-Rom to Cable Select and put it on the secondary controller (with 80 wire cable) along with the 4.3 gig drive. If you want the 4.3 gig to become E: and keep the CD drive as F: you need to change the Syquest drive letter to G:.

[emac921]

The last post seems like the best, BUT my "C" drive is a Fujitsu and I need a SPECIAL cable for cable select.
How else can I do the same thing without going the cable select route?? Thanks

[reboot]

I explained it above. It works wether you're using 80 pin or 40 pin cables, just use the master/slave jumper settings, not the cable select grey/black option.

[glc]

The 80 wire ATA66/100 cable *is* a cable select cable. If you are using standard 40 wire cables, then you use master/slave jumpering. If you only have one drive on an 80 wire cable, you can use the master or single jumpering OR cable select, but with 2 drives on an 80 wire cable, you need to use cable select.

[Jade]

Doesn't Fuji just need 2 jumpers set right to activate it's cable select.

[Carl Price]

If jumpered correctly Fujitsu drives work just fine as cable select with the ata-66/100 cable. If you are using an ata-33 40 pin cable any drive needs a special cable to be cable select.

[Edited by Carl Price on 04-27-2001 at 10:07 AM]