Better office living through a spruced up network? Help, please!

Factual Questions
1

As the most computer-savvy person in a small office, God help me, I’ve been given the task of repairing/upgrading some of the equipment and re-apportioning resources in a more reasonable fashion. I have a limited budget, much of which is going to be swallowed up by the cost of a decent b&w laser printer (badly needed), so I’m trying to make the best use of the equipment we already have. Most of my attention is going toward sprucing up three desktop PCs:

  • a Pentium 200 MHz machine with 128 MB RAM, 60 GB hard drive, Win 98SE
  • an AMD 1.2 GHz machine with 512 MB RAM, 40 GB hard drive, Win XP Pro
  • a P4 2GHz machine with 512 MB RAM, two hard drives - 120 GB (master) and 80 GB, Win XP Pro

As far as I’m concerned, these PCs have been dinked around with so much over the years that they are all due for reformats and re-installs (after I sort through about 6 years of partial backups and restores to get one complete backup of all the still-needed business files!). I also want to re-organize how the files are managed so that maintenance, etc. is in easier in the future. I would appreciate any advice on that front re partitioning drives and so on, since I’ve not done that before.

More questions I have about things I was thinking of doing:

  • Swapping the 40 GB drive from the AMD with the 60 GB drive from the Pentium 200. The AMD currently doesn’t have much on it, since there were fan and monitor problems (about to be fixed) and no one was using it. Can I reformat the 40GB drive, install Win98SE/Office/etc. on it while it’s still in the AMD, copy needed business files from the P-200 across the network, and then just swap it with the 60 GB hard drive in the P-200?

  • I don’t want to just copy the entire contents of the P-200’s drive, since this machine is easily the most screwed up in terms of missing files, errors in running programs, etc. However, there are a few programs still heavily in use for which I can’t locate install copies, product keys and so on. How do I best deal with the shifting of these programs over to the 60 GB drive?

  • I was thinking of switching around the hard drives in the P4, so that the 80 GB drive is the master, and the 120 GB drive becomes home to backups for the whole network (currently not being done, awk). Good idea/bad idea?

Lastly, there is a 486DX-50 machine collecting dust here. It has 64 MB RAM, an 800 MB drive and still happily runs Win 3.1(!). Anything I can reasonably still use this for, other than a doorstop? The network runs through a Netgear MR814 router with firewall, and each machine will have ZoneAlarm running on it, so I don’t think we need another firewall type thingy here… and that’s the only re-use that pops into my head at the moment.

Be gentle with me, I’m normally a Mac OS X chick. :wink:

2

This is going to sound mean, but you are pretty well screwed.

The the answers to the questions you’ve asked, and the ones that are implied by your admitted inexperience, would fill a small book.

I do this kind of stuff regularly, and my advice to any customer starting what you are starting on would be “Backup your files, chuck the junk, and start from scratch.” In the end, you will spend less money that way than the way you are going. Granted that the boss is paying your salary anyway, he’s not out any money this way - but only if we assume that you wouldn’t have been doing anything else. If you have other work you should be doing, then every day spent fooling with your system is a real cost to the company.

I would do that kind of thing for my own use, but I’ve got the knowledge to do it. You are going to have to learn a lot of stuff the hard way, and do it on a running (well, creeping) system.

Talk to the boss. See if he (or she) can stretch the budget enough to buy new machines and have the software installed and the stuff setup for you.

Please take this as a warning from someone who routinely sets up and installs PCs, and who has spent lots of time patching messed up systems back together for people who want to save money - and end up spending as much in service charges as buying new equipment would have cost.

Honestly. What you need to do is to install a PC as a server, and include a backup drive and software and a UPS. You’ll also want to connect your printer to the server, unless you shell out extra for a network capable unit.

You’ll need to pry your data out of the existing PCs and put it all someplace safe while you reinstall the OSs and all software. After that, you’ll have to put all of your stuff back in place - keeping in mind that the correct place to keep most data is on the server, where you will be running backups everyday. This also assumes that you find no pieces of hardware with problems. HDs are especially bad in this respect. A lot of stuff on older systems is caused by a squirelly HD.

You speak of moving drives around, and using one PC to install software on an HD that will be used in another PC. That you can ask the question about the software says that you don’t know enough to be doing this. (The answer is actually: Sort of. With a few tricks and knowing exactly what to twist, you can. Windows does not like that kind of thing.)

I am not down on you, nor am I trying to drum up business for me or someother shop. I am simply pointing out that a PC and a network are very complicated things and that a lot of people don’t know enough about them to effectively work on them.

Being able to use a PC to good effect is a completely different thing from being able to repair one. Would you suggest that the best car driver among you replace the transmission on the company car? That is almost the extent of what you are asking.

Sorry. Let me get down off the soap box.

If you ask a specific question, I’ll be glad to help. What you’ve asked is way too broad.

3

I appreciate your forthrightness on this, Mort Furd. I’m all too aware of my shortcomings, but I view this as an opportunity to learn as much as anything. I’ve been inside the cases of PCs before, and (with guidance) have dealt with Windows system settings etc. in the past, so I’m not intimidated by the prospect of doing it now. The fact that there’s even a combined wired/wireless Windows/Mac network up and running, rather than the old sneakernet, is because I took the time to learn what was needed. This is the same sort of situation, AFAIC.

I should elaborate - when I say I have a limited budget, I mean I really have a limited budget. I have a grand total of $1,500 available to me that has to cover the new laser printer, some software purchases and upgrades, and various and sundry other things (like upgrading/replacing the UPSes we currently have). Ditching all the existing machines is a waste of resources we can’t afford. (Well, I would like to junk the P-200, but since it will be used by someone primarily for text and spreadsheets I can deal with it for a while longer.) In any event, I would still be the person responsible for getting new machines set up for the other users and supporting them later, so it’s not as if much of my time would be saved going that route, even if the budget for new machines was there.

I will have exactly one week in mid-November, when everyone else is out of the office at a conference, to do what I can to improve the situation. My question about reformatting the 40 GB hard drive while it was still in the AMD relates to trying to do what I can in advance of that week, as a time-saver. If it’s not really feasible, then fine, that’s one thing I needed to know.

If it would take too much space here to answer the other questions I posted, then pointers toward books and/or other sites on the web would be fine and much appreciated.

4

You can format the HD in the AMD easily enough, but Windows doesn’t like it if you switch such minor things as the mother board and processor type behind its back. You can do it, but in the end you will still spend time fiddling with it when it is in its new home - with a risk of not getting it just right and having to reinstall Windows anyway.

Fixing your P200 is going to be the hardest job.

I would locate a program to copy the complete contents of the old drive, and do that. Then I’d spend time reinstalling windows (same version) right back on it… Same with all programs you have install CDs and keys for. Between installing Windows and installing the apps, I’d plug it into another machine as the secondary drive, and run every antivirus and anti spyware program I could put my paws on over it. Then I’d put in the P200, and go from there. Install all Windows updates, same for apps. Hope for the best.

First question, though, is can the P200 actually do anything useful with that big HD? If not, you’ll need to find some kind of extension program that will help Windows out.

5

That certainly would be a pain. It’s been awhile since I looked at the innards of the P-200, but if there’s an extra bay still available maybe I can steal some time while other folks are busy elsewhere and get the 40 GB hard drive ready to go in situ, so to speak.

All the machines in question have Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, SpywareBlaster and AVG Anti-Virus loaded on them, with the anti-spyware programs run at least once a week and AVG on automatic daily scan. I also just got through a round of running scandisk and defragging every machine, so I’m fairly confident that the drives are all clean and in good shape.

The 60 GB drive currently in the P-200 is a replacement, purchased about 3 years ago, and it came with a copy of Disk Manager by OnTrack (which we still have) for the gemometry translation. It worked like a charm. Since Disk Manager claims to work with any manufacturer’s hard drive, I don’t expect a problem with the 40 GB drive.

On the subject of large hard drive size … do you have any rules of thumb about partitioning large drives that you prefer to follow, e.g., keeping user files on a separate partition from program files, capping the size of individual partitions, etc.?

6

Against all the advice you will get from other sources to partition a drive and have one for Windows and one for data+programs, I suggest using just a single partition.

Almost any program you install under Windows will still want to put stuff onto the Windows partition even if you install the actual program on a different partition. Eventually, you run in to one fo two problems:
You run out of space on the Windows partition because you made it too small. Now you get to repartition, and hope that nothing goes wrong.
OR You run out of space on the data partition because you made the Windows partition too large. Now you get to repartition, and hope that nothing goes wrong.

As for the formatting, you can format the HD in the AMD and then move it to the P200 with no problem. it is just it can be very problematic to install Windows on the HD in one machine and then move that HD to another machine.

7

Mort’s given good advice, but we need to know the business, not technical, background. Why do you need computers? What are you using the computers to do? What is the cost of you messing about with these machines - is it more cost-effective to buy in a professional? Can your business afford to be without them for the time it takes you to rejig them?

An additional technical question: what’s your backout strategy if things don’t work?

Assuming you want them for basic usage - WP, spreadsheet, internet, email etc - then get yourself the latest Dell catalogue and buy three of the cheapest workstations. You’ll get a fully-functional machine, a full copy of XP Pro (not Home), MS Office etc. You switch them on and they set themselves up. Slap your data on (copy it over the network) and you’re done.

You may need a server - I’d suggest a box from your local PC builder with mirrorred IDE drives - with a backup device. Tape drives are expensive - US$1000 ++ for a decent capacity - so you might like to temporise with a DVD writer. Just be prepared to spend an afternoon every month shuffling DVDs. If you don’t go for a server, make sure each PC has a DVD writer and the data on it gets backed up regularly.

A question for your boss: how valuable is your data? Imagine there was a fire, and all the computers went up in smoke, how quickly do you need to be back online? Given proper backups, someone like Mort or myself could get you back up and running in a day; how long will it take you to re-key all that data?

8

Thanks for the suggestions, qts, but as I mentioned to Mort Furd my budget won’t let me go out and buy workstations just now, cheap or not. Believe me, I have a wish list that includes a server and at least one new PC, and my boss is willing to let me get whatever we need. However, our financial person has made it clear that major purchases (beyond a laser printer) will not be happening for at least another 6 to 8 months, so I have to deal right now with what I’ve got.

Some background, since you asked: This is a small geological consulting company, grown into an office/lab space from my boss’s living room. There are three people who are in the office every day, another three (like myself) that are in the office less often because of commuting distance/grad school, and a variable raft of part-timers who are hired to help with specific projects as they come along. Not everyone needs to work on a PC all the time, and besides, the senior project manager and I use our own laptops. However, on occasions when we have a full house, we need to have machines available for people to use.

What the machines are used for: mostly text, spreadsheets and database work. The P4 is meant to be reserved more for the graphics work we do - nothing fancy, just simple illustrations, maps, plots, and scanning of 35mm slides, photodocumentation, etc. The AMD performed that function earlier, and can still be used for graphics in many cases. The P200 has long been reserved for administrative functions - email and payroll, mostly - and is my boss’s personal machine at the moment.

My boss has tried, in the past, to bring in professionals to handle issues that cropped up when I was otherwise unavailable, but it hasn’t worked out well. Where the office is located (out in suburbia) there is a dearth of reliable, knowledgeable people who are available at a reasonable cost. Hence my increasing involvement in the care and feeding of the office equipment. As I said, the office will be empty for a solid week when I hope to get the reconfig accomplished, so there will be no down time as far as productivity is concerned while I’m doing it.

In any event, nothing will happen with any of the machines until I get done sorting through all the old files, and I’m doing that here at home as I have the time. There will be at least one full copy of the company’s files sitting on my G4 at home and two copies on DVD (one to be kept at the office, another to go into a safety deposit box) before I attempt any reconfiguring of the office machines.

9

The 486 machine could probably be used as a print server or standalone web browsing terminal - even a file server if you stick a bigger hard drive in there (although this might entail a BIOS upgrade on a motherboard of that age).

Linux (Says Mangetout, with the zeal of a new convert) would probably be the best option in terms of performance.

10

Agrees Mort Furd as a long time Linux user who also reccommends it to his customers when it will suit their purposes - mostly file/print/internet server stuff.

The first day after I’ve replaced (a typically illegal) installation of W2K server with SuSE Linux and Samba, you usually hear lots of “Wow, what happened to the server. It was never this fast before.”

11

So there is no downtime cost, and the only business cost is your time. And you have time to recover the situation should it all go horribly wrong.

That you’re doing nothing fancy is good.

You can dedicate the 486 as a firewall using Smoothwall. I know you said you didn’t want another firewall but layered defence is a good thing and it’s a defence against your Netgear being hacked and you can later experiment with a DMZ.

If you can find extra memory for the P200 - a total of 256 MB minimum and preferably more - Windows XP will run just fine, if slowly. Or you could buy a RAID card, stack it with disks, and put Linux with Samba on it and use it as a server. Again, the more memory the better.

If you’re using large disks in a server, don’t worry about the local disks.

Backup devices!

See if you can stretch your budget a bit:

[ul][li]Get yourself a HP Laserjet of some description - don’t be afraid to buy a second-hand one in good condition - and a decent colour inkjet for those colour proofs. [/li]
[li]The printers will hang off a Jetdirect box. [/li]
[li]Get an EIDE RAID card and a matched pair of large (200 GB++) HDDs and put them in your P200 as a mirror set. [/li]
[li]Set up the P200 with Linux and Samba as a server. [/li]
[li]Copy all your data to the server. Copy install sets of everything - OS, Service Packs, applications, utilities, the lot - to the server. Download all drivers, patches etc, and put them on the server too. Make sure everything is organised. Trust me when I say that when things go to pot you’ll be very grateful to have everything readily available![/li]
[li]Now back up your server.[/li]
[li]Rebuild your workstations the way you want.[/li]
[li]With your remaining budget buy a new lowish-spec (and therefore cheap) machine as your third workstation.[/li][/ul]

Good luck!

12

Don’t see the real benefit. You’re proposing several hours worth of work and the hassle of of swappng drive hardware (inc. the PITA of messing around with an old drive formatted with a disk manager overlay) to to gain a measly 20 gigs or about $ 10 worth of additional storage on the 1.2 Ghz PC. The upfit isn’t worth it esp on a old system that you do not have all the install keys and recovery stuff for if something goes wonky. Leave it alone.

Again, IMO kind of pointless and a largely a waste of time unless you are out of space on the 80 gig drive. 120-230 gig drives can be had for $ 70 - 140 on sale. Doing several hours of swap work just to gain just 40 gigs when you can buy large additional/replacement drives when needed for less than 100.00 is a questionable use of time and effort.

It’s not even doorstop status. Even charities don’t want iron that old. Toss it.

The bottom line is that saving data and doing clean re-installs of the OS and programs on the XP machines is the best thing you can do. If you have proprietary software products that use keys and dongles etc, make sure you have all the necessary re-install keys before doing this.

Leave the P-200 machine alone. It might be useful to make a drive image of it’s contents in case it fails as you indicate you are missing the install keys for several useful older programs it runs. I would recommend getting and using “Ghost” for drive imaging and backup.

You remaining budget after the Printer and UPS battey purchases is far too small for substantive PC hardware upfits. Wait until you have the bucks to replace the P200 with a new unit and get a server. If the 1.2 and the 2.0 Ghz units are cranking along leave them be as they will run XP Pro just fine with sufficient RAM.