dos/donts of new hard drive install

[alkazoo]

Hi everyone, just hoping you folks could give me some refresher tips on installing a new 80gb WD hard drive. I installed a 30 gig as primary master to my 6 gig primary slave over 2 years ago...Im installing the new drive as primary master (or would it be easier to just install as slave ,im getting rid of the 6 gig drive) both the older drives are WD also.
Although Western Digitals instructions/software is always good and i dont remember running into any hassles 2 years ago, i just wanna make sure i dont miss any small issues that might screw things up.
If i did install as primary master, how easy/hard is it to copy files over from the 30 gig (which has operating system on it and most of my important files).?.The 6 gig slave is only 10 percent full and just has game files/pics etc.
Anyway, any thoughts /tips appreciated before i start installing, formatting,,,copying etc...thankyou

[Cricket]

What brand and models are those hard drives? Do you know what RPM they spin at? Is the newest HDD a 8MB cache model?

Are you using 80 wire IDE cables?

What OS?

Since the 30GB is already in there as the master HDD, I would install the new HDD as a slave...unless the new HDD is faster.

Did you want to copy over any files from the 6GB HDD?

Cricket

[alkazoo]

hi cricket,,thanks for replying..
Yes, the new drive is 7200 rpm, the two older drives (both Western digital , not sure of model #s) are 5200 rpm (the slower/older versions, i think 5200 maybe 5800?)
The newer drive is 8mb cache also.
The operating system is Windows xp (service pack installed)
yes, there are some files on the 6gig i would like to copy, but figured i could burn to cd first, then just load on drive after its installed in whatever config works out...
If i do choose to have 80 gig as master, i assume i will have to originally install as slave to the 30gig,format, then copy 30 gig files over to new, then make the 80 gig the master. I have the 80 wire cables now also. (will use the new cable supplied with new drive). any more tips?

[doctorgonzo]

Using Norton Ghost is the easiest way to transfer the files from the 30 GB drive to the new 80 GB drive.

First, you would install the new drive as the slave, and then use Ghost to transfer all the data to the new drive (you can change partition sizes on the way if you wish to do that). Then install the new drive as the master and you should be set. At that point, I would take out the 30 GB drive and install the 6 GB drive as slave to get the data off of that drive, then reinstall the 30 GB drive as slave, format it, and use it for data storage.

[glc]

You can also use the WD Data Lifeguard software to set up and clone the drive.