The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Science & Nature => Topic started by: CortJstr on November 11, 2003, 07:11:27 pm
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I need some help. I need more HD space so I'm asking for a new one for Christmas but I'm a bit lost.
I don't know how big of a drive my current comp will recognize.
I'm only using this drive for files so I'd like one that I can hook up to my new computer when I get it (hopefully next year). I'm running Win98SE so I'll have to use FAT32. Would I even be able to transfer a drive to an XP machine and have it recognize the files?
Because of this I'm thinking external. Does anybody have experience with external drives? Will using it over USB 1.1 make it too slow to even bother with?
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XP will read a FAT32 file system, although if you're going to use the drive with XP-only I'd recommend you format it in NTFS, which will allow for compression and better resource handing (not to mention smaller cluster sizes - all of which means more stuff on your drive).
USB 1.1 is pretty slow. I'd recommend getting either a FireWire or USB2 external drive. If your PC doesn't support either of these you can get a card for about $40. It's well worth it.
Are you buying a new machine, too, or just using the new drive to stem the tide on your Win98 box until you can afford to upgrade?
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FAT32 won't limit your available space. FAT16 only let you use 2.1gb of any drive larger than that.
But as Jough said, best is to switch to either win2k or XP, and use NTFS, which, while not readable in 98, is a far better file system than FATxx. It not only offers better compression, but better insurance against heavy fragmentation, and faster and more efficient defragging (certainly with the right tool - Diskeeper say, not windows defrag, which is useless).
The other possible route you could go down, more future proof, is to get an SATA card and an SATA HD, which are faster than IDE drives. Any motherboard you buy soon will certainly feature SATA natively, and many already do.
I wasn't sure how much better they'd be, but I benchmarked my new one and it runs at more than twice the speed of my best IDE (both drives are Maxtor).
(edit: FAT32 does have a limit on size - 2TB)
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One caveat of NTFS is that you can't read your drives if you boot with a rescue disk. Not that this would have to happen often, but, say your neighbor's kid is a script kiddie and breaks in to your house, then fsks with your kernel. While you can press charges against the dirty little bastard, you can't fix your machine, and you'll lose everything on it.
Not that a massive porn collection can't be rebuilt, but it'll take a long time. Some of your favorites might no longer be available.
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You can more easily recover an NTFS boot drive than you can a FAT32 boot drive. I've had to do both. Contrary to popular believe, you *can* make an NT boot disk.
Basically NTFS is better in every way over FAT32, unless you need to have your portable drive work on both Windows9x and NT-based machines.
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Are you buying a new machine, too, or just using the new drive to stem the tide on your Win98 box until you can afford to upgrade?
The latter. So based on what you've said is buy a firewire/usb2.0 card and install it in my current Win98SE machine. Get an external drive and transer my files onto it.
Then when I get a new machine I'll hook up this drive, transfer the files onto its internal drive and consider reformatting as NTFS. But this is at least a year off, sadly.
And recommendations/warnings on brand?
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Get either a Maxtor or a Western Digital. They're the most common, so this won't be difficult.
Then find an external enclosure that will hold a full-sized drive that's either firewire, USB2, or both, if possible.
That'll run you about $50. The drive depends on capacity, but they've come dramatically down in price lately.
Anyway, you don't want to just buy an "external" drive - get a regular internal drive and an external inclosure. It'll be cheaper, and easier to upgrade in the future.
Plus, if you ever want to just pop that drive into your PC later, you'll have the option.
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Get either a Maxtor or a Western Digital. They're the most common, so this won't be difficult.
Although I'd recommend Maxtor over WD. I was running one of each recently, and the WD drive stopped working properly.
My experience with Maxtor, from 120mb to 120gb drives however - never a problem. I still have the 120mb drive, and the others, sat in static bags, in padded boxes, in case ever needed, and have taken data off them more recently too, ensuring they still work perfectly.
And vis a vis NTFS screwing up from boot disks, it is a problem with 98 era boot disks. I have made the error of trying to get fdisk from a 98 cd boot, and losing a hard drive to it.
I tried backup tools but they could only retrieve something like 8gb of the 20gb I had at the time.
So I snapped my 98 cd and vowed never to go near it again for safety reasons.
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While I'm at it, how do I figure out what kind of RAM I can use? I've only got 192 right now.
I think I've got a 128, a 64, and a free slot.
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It should be marked on one of the chips. You probably use SDRAM - but you'll need to know your bus speed so you can get the right speed of memory - i.e. PC100, PC133, etc.
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Used the drill down box finder and ordered, got my UPS shipment, plugged it in and forgot about it.
Well, assuming his mobo would take a pc133 SD, it'd be that easy. But if not he might run into problems.
Basically though, if it'll take a 128pin DIMM, you're either looking at SD or DDR. Aida32 http://www.aida32.hu/aida32.php will tell you what it is (under motherboard it has the bus speed and memory type).
If it takes SD a pc133 is the best choice.
If it's DDR, you can pretty much put any DDR module in and it will underclock itself, running at the bus speed. This allows for future proofing it to some extent.
For decent RAM either Corsair, OCZ or Crucial are recommended. I've had best performance from Corsair.
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It should be marked on one of the chips. You probably use SDRAM - but you'll need to know your bus speed so you can get the right speed of memory - i.e. PC100, PC133, etc.
Okay, I finally found this:
128-MB 100Mhz 64Bit 4-clock CL=2 SDRAM UNBUFFERED DIMM
64-MB 100Mhz 64Bit 4-clock CL=2 SDRAM UNBUFFERED DIMM
I have 3 slots total. So does this mean that 3 128MB 100Mhz SD DIMMS will max me out? Or is it 3 256's?
Also I'm getting a rather . . . unpleasant noise out of my machine. I fear it's the HD (I'm getting another for X-mas, but still).
Is there any way I can ID a sickly HD? Or maybe it's just a fan. A dead fan did kill my original video card.
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As far as the memory goes - it really depends on your motherboard. I couldn't tell you off the bat, but you DO have the book that came with your computer, no?
It should say how much max memory it can handle.
Also, three slots is HIGHLY unusual. There are usually four on a desktop box, or maybe two on some cheaper machines (or somewhat packaged machines, like Compaqs or Dells, etc.)
As far as your HD, there's a tool that Steve Gibson wrote that is perfect for fixing and diagnosing hard drives called "Spin Rite" but I think it's kinda expensive.
http://grc.com
You can also test your network security there. It's an amazingly good site.
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Well I'll be damned. Gateway has a new utility for just this information.
Number of Memory Slots on Board: 3 (3 banks of 1)
Maximum Amount / Type of RAM that can be Installed:
384MB SDRAM, PC100
They want $80 for a 128MB from an undisclosed company. That sounds a little steep to me.
Edit: Well I passed the security tests with perfect "invisible" scores but no help on the HD. But shutting down, opening the box, dusting, and checking all the screws seemed to help.
For clarification my manual is totally generic. It directs you to the gateway site for specific info on things like the color code of the soundcard and the stuff I just found above. It's really annoying, actually.
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I <3 Steve Gibson. He's got some of the best research available on the internet.
Plus, he codes in assembler! (ooooh!) How hardcore is that?
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You should be able to get SDRAM PC100 128MB chips for around $25-30.
Try here:
nevermind
EDIT:
Hmm... I bought some of these about a year ago for around $21. Now it appears they're about twice that much, if not a little more.
Has memory increased in price lately? Very odd. I'll see if I can find a deal for you.
You could check http://newegg.com for cheap non-OEM parts.
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Has memory increased in price lately? Very odd. I'll see if I can find a deal for you.
No. But old memory has.
The middle aged stuff is cheaper than it has been for about a year, but to buy either brand new top of the line stuff (a pc4200 paired 512 set costs a fuck*ng bomb) or say some sdram, is fairly costly.
Also, re strange noises if it's at all grindy, it's probably either the CPU fan or the PSU fan. Try and get a paintbrush and hoik all the dust out of the fans, and get the as clean as possible.
I have terrible problems with dust in here (probably from my smoking, so it may stop now) and my fans would start grinding as the dust clogged them up.
Had to replace two CPU fans and 1 GPU fan due to this. And really should have replaced my old PSU for it too.
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Really? I shut down yesterday for the first time since the hurricane (I reboot regularly, but rarely shut down) and something sounded like and old tractor when it was spinning down.
When I had the cover off yesterday I couldn't even find the damned fan to see if it was clogged. The HD seemed to be positioned near where the sound was coming from but I'm not sure.
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I buy memory here: http://www.crucial.com/
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Also, re strange noises if it's at all grindy, it's probably either the CPU fan or the PSU fan. Try and get a paintbrush and hoik all the dust out of the fans, and get the as clean as possible.
Okay, CPU fan I understand, although I'm not sure where it would be since the heat sink takes up all kinds of space. But what's PSU? Power Supply Unit?
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If the hard drive was making a grinding sound, it likely wouldn't work at all. Usually a HD makes a high pitched squeaking sound when it's dying.
And Crucial.com is way over-priced, but they will have every kind of memory in stock at any given time. I'd consider them a "last resort."
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Yeah, I thought that too I was just preparing myself for worst-case. I googled and found several message threads like this where the person actually replaced the HD before finding out it was just the fan. I'm borrowing a duster spray from work to work on things tonight.
I guess I should've done a better cleaning job last year. My video card died because the fan clogged and stopped spinning so it overheated. Luckily it was under warranty so I got a newer card with a heat sink for free.
Maybe I should invest in one of those tiny vacuums. I'm sure my case and keyboard could both use some sweeping out.
Edit: For the RAM I might just go with Best Buy. They have it for $40 and my parents are apparently getting me a BB gift card to buy my new HD so I could combine this in there.
I might even just get one chip. I've got one free slot so this'll cut down on cost and won't leave me with a useless 64MB chip laying around.
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What OS are you running?
Windows ME, 98, 95, etc. can get by just fine on 128mb. For Windows 2000 or XP, though, you'll need at least 256mb, if not 512mb (for XP, mostly).
It sounds like you're running an older computer, so even just getting two 128mb chips will make a noticable difference.
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I'm running 98SE (which gets retired next month). I have 192 now which has been pretty good to me. But between ZoneAlarm and Norton and distributed.net it gets constant use. I just recently installed ZA (when I got cable) and while it wasn't a huge hit to my performance I'd like to get things running more smoothly. Especially for ripping CDs and games.
So one more 128 should help a lot, and it would only leave me 64MB under my system maximum.
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Okay, well, $40 isn't too much to spend for better performance.
I have 512mb in my laptop but some of that is shared with video memory. I got a 128mb video memory expansion card with it, but it still wasn't really fast enough for, um, graphics applications.
So instead of sharing the usual 64mb I found that I could increase it in the bios to 128mb. So now I have 256mb of video memory and 384mb of main memory, which is plenty.
I had to drop back down to the old McAfee version, though, since the new version 8.0 would delete my entire mail spool file if it found ONE virus attachment. Losing mail is a good reason to never ever every use a product again. The 7.0 version is a real memory hog compared to the new version, but if it's going to be destructive (and I noticed that there are few configuration options in the new version compared to the older one) I can't use it.
They're sending me an RMA to return it, but I was considering wrapping the software with a pair of bricks and "returning" the software to the McAfee offices personally the next time I'm out West.
And the McAfee support fairy said it was a problem with Eudora. I asked if I was using Outlook would it delete my entire PST file because it found one virus in a message and she said she didn't believe so.
So I e-mailed myself the EICAR test virus. Guess what? Version 8.0 deleted the entire .pst file, which is the single file in which Outlook stores all mail, settings, contacts, addressses, and attachments.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
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It's definitely my HD. Fuck.
I dusted everythingthing out and turned it on with the wall off. The fan is humming smoothly and the HD is whining. When I shutdown it takes a long time to spin down. It's always been on the loud side but this sounds unusual to me. Plus it kind of flutters now and then. That can't be good.
I'm really worried as I'm the worst backer-upper ever. I'm keeping it off as much as possible until I get a new drive.
Advice?
How do I even switch over to a whole new drive? Do I have to start with my recovery disk and reinstall everything from scratch? I've never done anything like this.
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I rebuild my system about twice a year.
If you can, you should install the OS fresh on the new hard drive, and then attach the old one as a slave (there's a jumper setting, which will likely be marked on the drive somewhere - it's usually the last pins on the right).
Yes, you'll have to re-install your applications. But you can copy a lot over to the new drive once you have them both hooked up.
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I dunno what's going on. Last night I actually removed the whole rack holding the drive to dust out the parts I couldn't reach before and tightened everything down and now it sounds fine. But that might just be wishful thinking.
I don't think I'll be able to relax until I get a new drive and at least copy over my irreplacable files. If the old drive goes after that then I'll worry about installing/rebuilding on the new drive.
I dunno, I hate dealing with this crap.
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Not pleasant, but good to do. Nothing like a fully operational machine.
Having just reinstalled windows I know from recent experience whereof I speak.
And yes, PSU is Power Supply Unit - the little box in the back that has a fan on the back and possibly even on the inside. Some being two fan units.
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Ugh. I'm still not done. For whatever reason I can't get anything to see both drives. I take that back, they know the other drive is present but can't read any data off of it. So I installed XP on the new drive and I'm shuttling data from the old one via an intermediary computer on my network. Joy!
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Ugh. I'm still not done. For whatever reason I can't get anything to see both drives. I take that back, they know the other drive is present but can't read any data off of it. So I installed XP on the new drive and I'm shuttling data from the old one via an intermediary computer on my network. Joy!
Which drive can't you use? The new one? You did format and set up the partitions?
You do only have two IDE HD's in (the most windows can support - more joys of SATA)?
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Actually, most Intel motherboards support up to 4 IDE drives natively.
I have three in my desktop, plus a CD-RW on the fourth IDE.
You just have to jumper them correctly:
Primary Master
Primary Slave
Secondary Master
Secondary Slave
And I used to have 6 HDs with an add-on PCI IDE controller card.
Windows supports up to 26 fixed and removeable drives (each may assume a drive letter - a letter of the alphabet).
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I've never been comfortable with what it told me, since I was sure at one time I had three IDE HD's in my machine. But last time I tried to add a third in, fortunately only to swap files, I was told by windows that it only allowed 2 IDE hard drives at any time. Which seems odd since they oughtn't differ except for write transfer to a CD device.
What I can only assume is it's something to do with the SP version I was on at the time (or lack of probably), since they were definitely in the right jumper setup, and I tried alternatives.
Anyway, screw IDE is all I can say now!
Asides: The news I don't know if was mentioned here but the furor over the use of slave and master in IDE specification? Despite it being described for that usage in the dictionary, and the fact that it's official standard terminology.
I forgot the other one.
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It was weird. The Maxtor software could see both my drives and it could tell my old one was 32.xGB but it couldn't actually see there were any files on it.
So I tried Ghost and it was the same way. When I formatted the new drive as NTFS and installed XP it told me the old drive was working in device manager but wouldn't actually let me in.
So finally I just said fuck it. I'm moving the files from the old drive to my SO's computer over our network, disconnecting the old drive, then pulling them back from her machine onto my new drive w/ XP.
I was planning on disconnected the old one anyway. It's always been on the loud side but it's just been getting rediculous. The only problem is that her computer was bargain when it was new (Celeron) and now is just sad. Everytime I boot it I have to kill a half dozen tray programs just to keep it stable.
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If you run "MSConfig" from the "Run..." menu you can turn off the startup programmes that you don't use.
Of course, you can also do this by deleting those keys in the registry. Just make sure you don't wipe out anything you actually need.
I'm just forever killing Quicktime and Real startup crap.
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If you run "MSConfig" from the "Run..." menu you can turn off the startup programmes that you don't use.
Of course, you can also do this by deleting those keys in the registry. Just make sure you don't wipe out anything you actually need.
I'm just forever killing Quicktime and Real startup crap.
Thanks. I knew there was a way to do that (I'd used it on DirectCD before) but couldn't remember what it was.
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If you run "MSConfig" from the "Run..." menu you can turn off the startup programmes that you don't use.
You people and your scary versions of Windows (although due to some missing files every time I install 2k I think I may have to try XP again soon. I once had it on this machine, dual booted, for two weeks...).
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God, I hate XP. I kinda like 2000, but I've just downloaded Mandrake Linux to put on my old laptop and am REALLY looking forward to it.