Hard Drive / RAM question...

Factual Questions
1

Hoping for quick response… I have a 40GB hard drive from my old computer that I want to put in my new computer, but I also have a 12 GB hard drive that was in the old one… would I run into any problems by hooking up the 12GB HD first, transferring the files to my main 80GB, then disconnecting the 12GB to hook up the 40GB?

Also, I bought some 512MB DDR PC 2700 RAM, but my new comupter uses PC 2100 DDR… would there be a problem if I installed the new RAM (2700)?

2

For the hard drive setup, probably the easiest thing to do is to hook up the 40 GB drive as the secondary master in the new system . Then hook up the 12GB drive as the secondary slave. When you’re done, you need only remove the 12GB, and the OS won’t have to try to reconfigure your drive setup a second time. If the 12 GB drive is only temporary in the new system, you need not even mount it in a drive bay, just be sure its not going to hit the mainboard or other delicate parts.

3

The RAM will be perfectly fine, as long as you’re using Win2K or XP. 98/ME do not support more than 512MB RAM.

4

Q.E.D. : I also didn’t mention, I think I only have one available IDE, that is why I think I would have to switch them out…

5

Double check that. I haven’t seen any mainboards since the early 90s that only had one IDE channel. If yours does, then the process you described shoudl work fine. You might have to force the OS to redetect your hardware configuration, if it doesn’t so it on its own. What OS are we talking about, anyway?

6

Well, I have 768 meg on my 600hz AMD Alathon - Win 98se, and it sees it and runs just fine. If 512 would preform the same or not, I don’t know. I like to think it feels faster with the 768 but ::::: shrug :: I had it and so I use it.
I need more front buss next but only if I get a much bigger pipe. That is the holdup now.
YMMV

7

I’m guessing he only has one available IDE connection. In my system, I have a DVD and CD-RW that take up one channel and my hard drives occupy the other channel. If he does have 2 IDE optical drives (or other devices) + 1 IDE hard drive then he only has room for one more IDE device (assuming he has only 2 IDE channels).

8

Win9x will function with 512MB or RAM or more (up to 1GB), but may lead to “out of memory” errors at startup or when trying to open MS-DOS session. See this article and this one
Fact is Win9x was not designed to handle that much memory (and don’t need as much either).

9

ddr 2700 will run at ddr2100 speeds. You aren’t getting full use of the ram…but it will definately work.

10

" Also, I bought some 512MB DDR PC 2700 RAM, but my new comupter uses PC 2100 DDR… would there be a problem if I installed the new RAM (2700)?"

You have to let us know what kind of computer & motherboard you have & what bios. You can find out what memory chips to put in in the owners manual or at crucial.com

As for the HD thing, if you copy system files from your old HD onto the new one you could overwrite needed system files, so be careful. They make software to do this safely though.

11
      • Previous to XP, MS OS’s didn’t care what secondaries were hooked up–they’d discover it on boot. With it’s “anti-OS-copy detect” feature, I dunno if XP blocks this or not… -but you do need to make certain one way or another that the intended 80 gig HD is recognized as the master. One way it is designated is its position on the end of IDE channel (cable ) #1 [-if you boot into the BIOS and look around, it will show you the two IDE channels and what drives are on each position. Looking around in the BIOS is perfectly safe as long as you “exit without saving changes”…]. The other way it is designated is by booting into the BIOS and setting your master HD preference there–but then you cannot switch that physical connection to any other device, because the OS will try to use any device connected to that end of that cable as the “master” device–the OS cannot normally alter the BIOS settings.
  • The other way is to use the jumpers on the drives themselves. The jumper settings may be printed right on the drive but if not, you can go to the (40gb) HD manufacturer’s site and look its specs up by model number, to find out how to set them so that the HD is always a slave. -Or you can do what I would do and guess: -most- modern drives act as a slave if you remove all the jumpers completely. It’s only if you want the drive to act as a master or use cable-select that you need any jumpers on them.
    ~
12

Thanks guys, I did some checking and fiddling and am good to go.

Thanks again…