Hello. I have a couple questions at the end of this post. My main concern and reason for posting, however, is to ask anyone out there who has a spare moment to look over this and let me know if I am doing anything wrong, or suggest a better way/ order of doing things. I have built a few machines before and installed a few OSs, but I am by no means a tech expert. Thanks!
Have now:
Computer 1:
Asus P3B-F mobo
Western Digital 13 Gb
HP CD/RW
Win 98se
Computer 2:
Intel D815EEA2U mobo
On its way:
Sony CD/RW
WD 80 Gb
SIIG ATA PCI HD controller card
New power supply for computer 1 (currently dead)
Additional OS
Win ME (from Dell)
Win XP upgrade (from Dell)
(note: I’ve spoken at length with Dell CS and Tech support, they understand what I am doing and do not have a licensing problem. The reasons why are not relevant (but I will share if asked) to this post, so I won’t take up any more space.)
What I want to do
Move the 13 Gig and the HP CD/RW FROM computer 1 TO computer 2. I want to drop the controller card, the new HD and new CD/RW in computer 1 and load Win ME then Win XP upgrade on top of it. I want to keep an image of the 13 Gb drive on the new drive.
Steps I plan to take
Computer 1[ul]
[li]Connect power supply[/li][li]Backup data [/li][li]Create Win ME and Win 98 boot disks[/li][li]Run the Win XP Upgrade Advisor to check hardware compatibility[/li][li]Install controller card[/li][li]Install 80 Gb drive to card[/li][li]Remove HP CD/RW[/li][li]Install Sony CD/RW[/li][li]Boot and install Win ME [/li][li]Install Win XP upgrade[/li][li]Install hardware drivers as necessary[/li][li]Move image from old drive to new drive[/li][li]Remove old drive[/ul][/li]
Computer 2[ul]
[li]Install old HD, HP CD/RW[/li][li]Format, and install clean copy of Win 98 and necessary drivers. [/ul][/li]My main concern comes from a section of the instructions that came with the SIIG controller card. They say that I should not connect two drives of different speed to the same controller. Why? Is it because they will only run as fast as the slowest drive, or will there be significant hardware problems? I only want to have both connected long enough to mirror the old drive to the new drive.
If I need to have them on separate connectors, do I put the new drive on the card and the old drive on the board? The card comes with two distinct connectors, can I use both of those? If I do keep them separate, how do I set the jumpers, and how do I set the BIOS to boot up from the drive connected to the controller?
Lastly, the controller card says that I can attach the CD/RW to it as well. As it is a faster card than the motherboard, and the CD/RW is a 48X12X48, will it be better to connect it to the card or should I leave it on the board?
Thanks!!!
Rhythmdvl
I forgot to add that I downloaded an updated BIOS and a flash utility from the Asus website. The board is a few years old and I believe I’ll need to do that to run the drive and XP. I’ll do this after backing up my data.
(the thought scares me a little – if you don’t think I need to do this, let me know.)
Again, thanks.
This may turn out to be a dumb question, but why not just connect the new HD as a slave to the old one, install Win ME and the XP upgrade to the slave, copy the data from the old drive to the new one, and then pull the old drive? Seems to me like that should work. You might want to flash the BIOS before connecting the new HD, to avoid any problems in recognizing it.
Note: This is not intended to be definitive advice. Any detrimental actions that take place as a result of this advice are not my fault. Consult someone with more experience if you have further questions.
Your plan sounds good to me. I do not have a great deal of experience but have put together maybe 10 systems. You might consider making the drive transfer before installing the add on card. You should be able to attach 2 drives in a Master-Slave arrangement to make this work. Then install the controller card when making the final build. I did flash a couple of BIOS and it was easier than I thought so be cautious but not afraid. You can install an XP upgrade without installing ME. It will just ask for qualifying medium during the XP installation and you can use the ME disk.
Flashing the BIOS is a risky thing to do. If it futzes up in the middle of the process for any reason, you are usually left with a dead motherboard. I would never flash a bios unless I was trying to fix a specific problem. Try the drive first. If it doesn’t work with that motherboard (because the BIOS is too old, it might have the 8 gig boundary) then try a drive overlay program. If that doesn’t work with XP, then flash the BIOS.
It used to be that hard drives shipped with the drive software on a floppy disk. These days most manufacturers don’t bother shipping the floppy, but you can usually download the software from their web site.
XP is a sneaky little bugger. It may not work very well being transferred from one drive to another. If you are trying to copy things from one drive to another then do a ghost or something while the OS is still ME. Then install XP only on the final drive where it will forever stay.
This sounds like a good idea. I am a bit afraid of XP though. My thought was that by getting XP up and running on a system as close to permanent as possible would appease the XP gods. Also, I had hopes to take as few steps as possible. To do this means installing the card on a Win 98 system, installing everything on the new Win ME-XP system and moving on. Not a big deal if it makes the overall process easier. Lastly, I’ve never installed an operating system on a slave drive before and have never changed that over to a boot drive. Is it really that simple?
Again, won’t this offend the XP gods?
Whoa… did you just save me a huge block of time? THANKS!!!
Yes, flashing scares the bajeebus out of me. Once the power supply is all hooked up I’ll be able to find the version number etc. – is there a site on the net that will tell me if I there is a need to flash? Will the XP Upgrade Advisor tell me? If I can avoid this step, I will be QUITE happy.
If I don’t flash, at what point will I find out I need to? What state will my computer be in, and will I run into problems if I have half an OS on the drive?
Lastly, does anyone have input as to whether or not I can link both drives on the one card just for the duration?
I appreciate your help, thanks.