Want to U/G HDD without changing or reinstalling OS

[Oqsy]

Hello all, I'm currently running an AMD Athlon 1.04GHz with 1 GB of ram, and 2 HDDs, one is an IBM-DTTA-351680 and the other is a WDC WD800JB-00FMA0.  My OS is Windows XP Home Edition 2002 SP3.  

Between my two HDDs, I'm down to about 13 GB free, and both are getting exceptionally loud when reading / writing.  It's time to do something about this.  I'm really fine with the mobo and processor, but would love to get to the 2GB+ level on this system, but that's another thread.  

I want to replace BOTH IDE HDDs with at least one large IDE HDD, but for a good deal I wouldn't mind filling both IDE slots with quality drives.  I'm curious what particular IDE HDDs members here would recommend, and on top of that, what imaging software you'd recommend for "ghosting" the OS drive.

I am choosing imaging of the drive becauseI don't want to reinstall the OS, reinstall drivers (some of them for obsolete hardware), repeat tweaks(some of them lost to my poor memory and advancing age), reinstall software (some of it registered but old enough not to know where the license info is, etc).  Anyway, I'm perfectly content with XP SP3 and don't see myself getting into the 64 bit realm any time in the near future.

Anyway, I'm thinking an IDE drive with a usb adapter would work for the initial imaging of the primary drive, and the secondary can just be drag/dropped since it contains no vital OS information, scratch drive data, or programs (it's strictly for multimedia storage currently).  Then remove the primary drive and replace it with the NEW drive containing the image of the old one on the IDE bus.  Any tips, suggestions, etc?

[bionicroach]

Take a look at Acronis Disk Director for cloning a smaller hard drive to a bigger hard drive.  You could also accomplish the task with their True Image product, but I believe you'd have to do an extra step of creating a full disk image first (which would require an extra drive, network location, etc), then booting from the Acronis recovery CD and restoring that image to the new, bigger HDD.  (The True Image product used to have this feature built in, but the latest version doesn't specify whether or not it still does, so I get the impression they've split the direct cloning feature off to their Disk Director product so they can sell it separately...bummer.)

The Acronis stuff works well and is worth the money in my experience, but if you're looking for a free alternative, take a look at the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows.  It is a BartPE based boot disc that includes a bunch of handy free tools.  I believe DriveImage XML will let you clone a HDD directly without having to make a separate image first.

Also excellent is the free Parted Magic boot disc.  It's a Linux based boot CD that includes Gparted for disk cloning / partition managing.  I have used it to expand partitions on NTFS drives before and it worked great.

Oh, and for burning the CD images in the first place, I recommend ImgBurn.

As far as hard drives go, I am pretty much all SATA these days, so I don't have an IDE recommendation, but I have had good luck with WD Caviar Black drives.  Looks like they offer IDE interface in their Caviar Blue drives, though.

[microsoft windows]

Even if your hard disks are getting loud, you can still get a lot of mileage out of them. A few of my hard disks have been going strong for over 15 years.


But if you're looking into replacement, an easy way to do it would be to put the new hard disk in one of the secondary drives, then run DOS off a floppy, and copy all the files over. That's what I've done before when I've wanted to consolidate hard disks.

[kishy]

That's only feasible when working with particularly old operating systems.

(or Linux)

Nevermind that DOS won't have the right filesystem support.

[bitflipper]

Acronis True Image Home has been good to me through many hard drive swaps. It works well with XP, Vista, and Win7.

I suppose quality IDE hdd manufacturers coincide with quality SATA hdd manufacturers. I'm using mostly Seagate Momentus 2.5" 7200 rpm drives, one Western Digital Scorpio 2.5" 7200 rpm for OS & data. Backups are Maxtor 2.5" One Touch mini and another Seagate Momentus 2.5". I tend to avoid Hitachi Deskstars because of past disasters, but I did run 2 of them in my old rig in a RAID 0 configuration for a couple of years with no problems.

Your hdds are more likely to fail if they get hot, regardless of brand, so keep it cool.

[microsoft windows]

That's only feasible when working with particularly old operating systems.

(or Linux)

Nevermind that DOS won't have the right filesystem support.

I've got some DOS boot disks with support for NTFS and other file systems. I've had to use them in the past to deal with some pretty nasty hard disk problems.

I've got a whole box of assorted DOS boot disks for various purposes.

[EverythingIBM]

I've got some DOS boot disks with support for NTFS and other file systems. I've had to use them in the past to deal with some pretty nasty hard disk problems.

I've got a whole box of assorted DOS boot disks for various purposes.

Hmmm, I wonder just how many DOS goodies you have.

[Oqsy]

Thanks for the advice folks.

I'm surprised EverythingIBM hasn't PM'd me asking for the IBM drive yet

I understand that the drives might have plenty of life left in them, but the fact that they're loud AND near capacity, and storage is so darn cheap has led me to decide it's time for a 1TB or so drive...

[InSanCen]

Mine get replaced every 2-3 years, no exceptions. The older drives are wiped (10 passes of garbage), and sold on or put in charity systems. I am not long rid of 6x 400GB SATA drives in this way. Saying that, I am from an Enterprise environment, and this is second nature. They, like me, value data, and re-imaging is an arse at the best of times.

[microsoft windows]

I use whatever hard disks I get. Most of mine have been abused and have some bad sectors, giving them strange sizes like 8.9GB, 31GB, and 28GB to name some of them.

[ch_123]

I've had success with booting up a Linux live CD, and copying the OS folders from one hard drive to another, and using a partition tool to set the boot flag to active.

[Oqsy]

That sounds good, too... I have a bootable linux disc right here on my desk with some partition tools from when i was dual booting linux and winxp...

[ch_123]

Well, if it has NTFS-3G, it's good to go. Any Ubuntu disc from about two years ago onwards will do nicely.

[microsoft windows]

I never used Linux. I still do it all with the trusty old DOS startup disks.

I've found that the main advantage of floppy disks is just about anything with a floppy drive will boot from one with no trouble unlike CD's, ZIP disks, flash drives, DVD's, etc.

I've formatted some really ugly hard disks, made computers over 20 years old boot from CD's, and transferred contents from the master drive to another all with floppy DOS.


Some of my MS-DOS disks.

[Oqsy]

My problem with floppies is that they don't seem to age well...  I've had I don't know how many dos boot disks that would boot fine when made, and then when I'd go back to them a year or two later, they were completely useless.  My experience with floppies is shelf-life is the lowest of any media I've encountered.

[Oqsy]

I pulled the trigger and got a Western Digital Caviar Blue PATA / EIDE 500GB drive.  I did NOT, however, purchase a USB / IDE cable to do this externally, so it looks like I'm going to be taking out my secondary (media) drive to image the primary (OS) drive.  After that's done and the new drive is in the system as the new primary, I'll copy everything from the media drive, and have it all consolidated onto the one big disk...  the next question is what to do with the other available IDE slot.  Oh well, I've been wanting to try Debian or Linux Mint...

[bionicroach]

My coworker was raving about Mint the other day.  Haven't tried it myself, but he's a Mac guy and was pretty impressed with the usability and slickness of it, so I thought that was a pretty good sign.

Doing the cloning with the internal interfaces should be much faster anyway.  The USB adapters are super convenient (I have the exact dock one that Ripster posted a picture of) but they are pretty slow for moving a lot of data.  USB 3.0 should fix that problem, but I haven't pulled the trigger on that upgrade yet.

[kishy]

My problem with floppies is that they don't seem to age well...  I've had I don't know how many dos boot disks that would boot fine when made, and then when I'd go back to them a year or two later, they were completely useless.  My experience with floppies is shelf-life is the lowest of any media I've encountered.

Floppies actually do last a long time if properly cased and kept at suitable humidity and temperature levels. Older media (which most floppies are by now) may prove unreliable for data/software storage, but a full format should effectively "refresh" it into a more reliable condition ready to transfer files between machines. The biggest reliability concern is actually the drives.

That said, storing them in a 0-percent-relative-humidity, 0-degree-celcius room would cause some damage, as would 70 percent at 80 degrees.

I've got a never-opened pack of high density 5.25" floppies. FujiFilm responded to my email...they will indeed honour the lifetime warranty should the disks prove to be faulty. The replacement media would be DVDs, though.

[EverythingIBM]

Floppies actually do last a long time if properly cased and kept at suitable humidity and temperature levels. Older media (which most floppies are by now) may prove unreliable for data/software storage, but a full format should effectively "refresh" it into a more reliable condition ready to transfer files between machines. The biggest reliability concern is actually the drives.

That said, storing them in a 0-percent-relative-humidity, 0-degree-celcius room would cause some damage, as would 70 percent at 80 degrees.

I've got a never-opened pack of high density 5.25" floppies. FujiFilm responded to my email...they will indeed honour the lifetime warranty should the disks prove to be faulty. The replacement media would be DVDs, though.

What losers! FujiFILM should replace floppies with floppies. You need to send in a customer complaint.

I never used Linux. I still do it all with the trusty old DOS startup disks.

I've found that the main advantage of floppy disks is just about anything with a floppy drive will boot from one with no trouble unlike CD's, ZIP disks, flash drives, DVD's, etc.

I've formatted some really ugly hard disks, made computers over 20 years old boot from CD's, and transferred contents from the master drive to another all with floppy DOS.

Show Image

Some of my MS-DOS disks.

That's a cool set of disks -- got lemmings or any impressions games in there?

[microsoft windows]

I don't have Lemmings, but I have plenty of games on floppy disks. I've got Railroad Tycoon, Sim City, Mario Bros., Monopoly, and a bunch of others. I also have the screensaver with the flying toasters on a floppy, along with Wordperfect 7 (missing a disk though), MS-DOS 6.0, Windows 3.1, El-fish, and plenty of other old software.


If you want a copy of any of my old software, let me know. I'll be happy to get it off the floppies and send it to people.

My problem with floppies is that they don't seem to age well...  I've had I don't know how many dos boot disks that would boot fine when made, and then when I'd go back to them a year or two later, they were completely useless.  My experience with floppies is shelf-life is the lowest of any media I've encountered.

I store floppy disks vertically in plastic storage cases and they actually last a very long time (Some have lasted over 25 years).

[EverythingIBM]

I don't have Lemmings, but I have plenty of games on floppy disks. I've got Railroad Tycoon, Sim City, Mario Bros., Monopoly, and a bunch of others. I also have the screensaver with the flying toasters on a floppy, along with Wordperfect 7 (missing a disk though), MS-DOS 6.0, Windows 3.1, El-fish, and plenty of other old software.
If you want a copy of any of my old software, let me know. I'll be happy to get it off the floppies and send it to people.

You should just create a whole software package collection from your floppies. I'd certainly give it a try on my 300PL after burning it to a CD or floppies.

[Oqsy]

Ok, I used Macronis Migrate Easy (has a clone utility).  Unfortunately due to the fact that powering down the system to install the new disk changed the date/time data, the trial was invalidated.  So it was either try to find a way to circumvent the trial software's limitations, email or call macronis and try to plead my case to them (this really is something they should consider and make not of in the software; by following their instructions precisely you reset your clock and as a result, if you try to run the software again it auto-expires; not exactly planning ahead), or cough up $50 for the full version.  Anyway, I went ahead, took a BIG gulp, and bought the software for $49.99.  I just hope my wife doesn't find it on the statement until I get my next paycheck.

Once installed, Macronis Migrate Easy worked flawlessly.  I was back on my old setup on the new disk in about 20 minutes.

Now my biggest concern is relocating my music to the newly freed 80GB drive and pointing all the paths to the right place...  that might take some time.  Anyway, thanks for the advice and product recommendations.  Migrate Easy is recommended (for a single use, the trial would be perfect!  Just CORRECT your DATE/TIME *AFTER* installing the new disk, and *BEFORE* running the software...

The drive is damn quiet compared to the one it replaced (that IBM had single-handedly taken my computer from the nice soothing fan hum it has now to a jet engine accelerating for takeoff).  I'd really wished i'd measured the sound output and made a comparison recording for you to all hear the difference.  All this time I was blaming it on a fan in the power supply! (the only one I hadn't taken apart, cleaned, and lubricated).  Cheers to geekhack!

[kishy]

Why is your date/time not being maintained between operating sessions?

Dead CMOS battery? Date/time are maintained as long as the button cell battery on the mobo is good, and it is 95% of the time replaceable or hackable.

[EverythingIBM]

Ok, I used Macronis Migrate Easy (has a clone utility).  Unfortunately due to the fact that powering down the system to install the new disk changed the date/time data, the trial was invalidated.  So it was either try to find a way to circumvent the trial software's limitations, email or call macronis and try to plead my case to them (this really is something they should consider and make not of in the software; by following their instructions precisely you reset your clock and as a result, if you try to run the software again it auto-expires; not exactly planning ahead), or cough up $50 for the full version.  Anyway, I went ahead, took a BIG gulp, and bought the software for $49.99.  I just hope my wife doesn't find it on the statement until I get my next paycheck.

Once installed, Macronis Migrate Easy worked flawlessly.  I was back on my old setup on the new disk in about 20 minutes.

Now my biggest concern is relocating my music to the newly freed 80GB drive and pointing all the paths to the right place...  that might take some time.  Anyway, thanks for the advice and product recommendations.  Migrate Easy is recommended (for a single use, the trial would be perfect!  Just CORRECT your DATE/TIME *AFTER* installing the new disk, and *BEFORE* running the software...

The drive is damn quiet compared to the one it replaced (that IBM had single-handedly taken my computer from the nice soothing fan hum it has now to a jet engine accelerating for takeoff).  I'd really wished i'd measured the sound output and made a comparison recording for you to all hear the difference.  All this time I was blaming it on a fan in the power supply! (the only one I hadn't taken apart, cleaned, and lubricated).  Cheers to geekhack!

Don't throw away the IBM HDD!!! Keep it safe.

[Oqsy]

Keep it safe for what purpose?  An air raid siren?  Seriously, imagine a variable speed power drill at about 1/4 speed.

If you'll refer to earlier in the thread, I anticipated a PM from EIBM asking for the old drive
Not quite what I expected, but definitely close

[kishy]

Hey, I'll take the thing if it's being trashed. Always looking for 'usable' capacity drives for my external enclosures used for mini-temp-backups during OS reinstalls and stuff. Noise level is no concern for this type of use.

[ch_123]

Is it a Deathstar?

[microsoft windows]

My biggest hard disk is a 40Gb.

[Oqsy]

I've got a pile of old HDDs, DVD drives, CDROMs, memory, etc...  stuff that "works" but has been phased out for one reason or another.  I plan on putting this drive in that pile for now.  It's very likely that the pile will be put up for sale / trade here in the classifieds VERY soon.  Its about time I made some room in here and got rid of some clutter.

[EverythingIBM]

I've got a pile of old HDDs, DVD drives, CDROMs, memory, etc...  stuff that "works" but has been phased out for one reason or another.  I plan on putting this drive in that pile for now.  It's very likely that the pile will be put up for sale / trade here in the classifieds VERY soon.  Its about time I made some room in here and got rid of some clutter.

Well, I think that IBM HDD has lots of years left. The ones I have are strangely quiet though. Only make a noise when turning on.

I wouldn't mind taking it and using it for something; but there's a lot of things I want to buy at the moment. Can't pay $$$ for an old HDD unless it was free; but shipping makes it not so. Plus, shipping HDDs can damage them if they're bumped around too much.

[Oqsy]

Nope, shipping it would be more than it's worth to me anyway...  I'll repurpose it somehow, even if it's using the magnet to hold my kids to the fridge.  I mean umm... to hold their homework and art and stuff to the fridge.  I'd never leave a child hanging from a fridge by a magnet (for long).

[microsoft windows]

Madey a type-O there?

[EverythingIBM]

Nope, shipping it would be more than it's worth to me anyway...  I'll repurpose it somehow, even if it's using the magnet to hold my kids to the fridge.  I mean umm... to hold their homework and art and stuff to the fridge.  I'd never leave a child hanging from a fridge by a magnet (for long).

Just out of curiosity, how much would it cost to ship to Canada?

[kishy]

Just out of curiosity, how much would it cost to ship to Canada?

I can answer that.

It would fit in the 11-12 dollar Priority flat rate box, bubble wrap on all sides (but a bit of a squeeze on the 'height' dimension).

Going First Class it would be closer to 6 but packaging not included.

[muchadoaboutnothing]

For tasks such as this I usually use an Acronis TrueImage boot CD to clone the drive, then I use a Gparted LiveCD to extend the existing NTFS partition to utilize the new space on the drive (since I always replace older drives with the same size or bigger ones, usually the latter).

[randku]

Shame you paid for that software, you could've cloned your boot partition with GParted.
Oh well.

[Oqsy]

umm when I was going through the boot order settings in cmos, I found a utility that gives current processor temperature.  mine was at 123F...  I'm no expert, but that's a little too warm for me to be, say, using it, right?

[kishy]

umm when I was going through the boot order settings in cmos, I found a utility that gives current processor temperature.  mine was at 123F...  I'm no expert, but that's a little too warm for me to be, say, using it, right?

Typically the unit used when talking about CPU temps is Celcius, which would put you at 50 degrees...quite acceptable.

However, I've watched systems power off due to overheat right in front of me with the temperature figure being 20 degrees off from maximum operating temp by specs...some of the sensors aren't terribly accurate.

[muchadoaboutnothing]

Typically the unit used when talking about CPU temps is Celcius, which would put you at 50 degrees...quite acceptable.

However, I've watched systems power off due to overheat right in front of me with the temperature figure being 20 degrees off from maximum operating temp by specs...some of the sensors aren't terribly accurate.

Northwood P4s had badly placed sensors, for instance.

Prescott P4s benefited from a smaller process but better located the temp sensor to give more accurate readings. This resulted in higher readings on Prescott at the same clock speed, resulting in the misnomer "Preshot".

[Oqsy]

I found that the "arctic silver" was flaked and worthless.  wiped it off and cleaned up the surface of the heat-sink and chip fastidiously.  Put some generic thermal paste I had in a drawer on and smoothed it out nice...  now I'm running within spec (according to the mobo monitor).  I also found that quite a few of my other settings were wacky too!  The FSB speed was wrong, the chip detected was entirely the wrong speed, etc.  I've since addressed those issues as well.  I bet my clock resetting problem mentioned above and these cmos irregularities share a common source........ dead cmos battery.  DOH!  I'll be picking one up tomorrow

[kishy]

I found that the "arctic silver" was flaked and worthless.  wiped it off and cleaned up the surface of the heat-sink and chip fastidiously.  Put some generic thermal paste I had in a drawer on and smoothed it out nice...  now I'm running within spec (according to the mobo monitor).  I also found that quite a few of my other settings were wacky too!  The FSB speed was wrong, the chip detected was entirely the wrong speed, etc.  I've since addressed those issues as well.  I bet my clock resetting problem mentioned above and these cmos irregularities share a common source........ dead cmos battery.  DOH!  I'll be picking one up tomorrow

It's also possible the reset jumper could be set to reset (or there is no jumper present, and it requires one to be present on the 'run' pins). Most boards won't boot or even power on with it like that, but the ones that can will behave like the battery is dead.

[keyb_gr]

Well, if the battery is as old as the harddrives were...

[Oqsy]

No, the hard drives were already OLD when I put this system together.  This has been an ever-evolving computer.  I have no idea what system any of the original components came from unless they were purchased specifically for this computer (like the new HDD).  The motherboard and chip were most likely purchased together, and everything else has been pulled from here and there.  The battery is easily 6-8 years old, so needing a new is definitely possible.  The mobo diagnostics DOES show around 3 volts from the battery, but I know that can be deceiving since that circuit is also fed by a step down from 5 to around 3.3 volts when powered on.  I'll double check the jumpers when replacing the battery and make sure everything there is copacetic.

[microsoft windows]

You know, with a 1 Ghz athlon, you should try looking into some Pentium III's. Pentium III's are great CPU's and are much more efficient than the AMD's of their day.

[ch_123]

AMD were the first ones to come out with a 1GHz CPU, and that was back in the day when the clockspeeds or Intel and AMD chips were almost equal. Intel lagged behind with the Pentium 3.

And why would you to the bother of gutting an old Athlon system to replace it with an equally old and slow CPU?

[Oqsy]

I was wrong about the chip. It's a Sempron 2200+ at 1700Mhz...  I was confusing it with an AMD system I built for my mom a while back that had an Athlon.  She's now got an Athlon 64 for checking email and using google.  Oh well.

Edit:  Agreed, there would be no point in trying to find a chip that would be compatible with this motherboard, or hunting down an old motherboard to go with it.  I *think* it's Socket A if memory serves.  

Ideally I'd like a system with PCI, PCIe, AGP, SATA, IDE, Serial ports, PS/2, USB, *no onboard lan, video, or audio*, and enough room for **** tons of RAM, and height of the tower be damned.  

The processor could be any maker as far as I'm concerned as long as it was quick, efficient, and would last me 5-8 years.  Unfortunately I've never see a motherboard that is tailored to what the customer already has, they're always built fo what they want to sell you and "upgrade" you to.  A good transitional mobo for me between my current WinXP32 system with IDE, PS/2, and DDR(1) and a new quad/octocore 64 bit 16GB RAM system with a 2 Ghz FSB would be something that would be able to run both the old AND the new hardware simultaneously so that I could upgrade components as I needed to, instead of having to replace everything at once (minus speakers, input devices, and monitor) just so it would work with the motherboard.  

Maybe I'm not digging deep enough, but it seems like the mobo industry takes these advances in technology for granted and has no interest in backwards compatibility for those who wish to upgrade components as they NEED replacement, not because there's something newer and/or faster.  

Grr, I'm a cranky dinosaur.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

The only AMD computers I have are my busted HP laptop, that has an AMD Turion 64 in it, that runs at 2.0 Ghz and I have my old AMD K-6 machine, that can run anywhere from 550 Mhz to 120 Mhz.

[microsoft windows]

The K-6 is a good processor.