Converting Master HDD to a Slave!!?

[Ozzie M]

Hello,
I've recently purchased a much bigger & faster HDD and added it to my PC as the slave.
What should I do now to get the best out of it - I have been told to back up my original one which s quite small and convertthe new HDD to the master which will make my system run quicker, but i'm not sure if thats the best thing to do?

What would you do?
Thanks for your time.

Ozzie M.

[Vincent Fleming · Accepted solution]

Converting over to the new drive is the thing to do.

If you want to make this as painless as possible, there's software for that. I forget the name of the company that makes it, but they also make "Partition Magic". I think it's called "Drive Copy" or something similar. It's a subset of PM and is much cheaper.

Give it a try. It worked great for me last time I used it (about 1-2 years ago).

Good luck,

Vince

[Jose Antonio Orozco]

2 Months ago, i did that work in my home using the software CASPER (disk clone), under WinXP(!). I know that GHOST from Norton utilities do a good job too.

Everthing have been working well, so i could recommend you.

The trial-ware works with no chance to resize the original partition, so if you don't mind, your disk could become 2 partition disk: 1 for OS(win?) and 1 for data.

[Jose Antonio Orozco]

2 Months ago, i did that work in my home using the software CASPER (disk clone), under WinXP(!). I know that GHOST from Norton utilities do a good job too.

Everthing have been working well, so i could recommend you.

The trial-ware works with no chance to resize the original partition, so if you don't mind, your disk could become 2 partition disk: 1 for OS(win?) and 1 for data.

[Caesar_3]

Hello!

You should change the drive to the new one.
If you can install all the things that you need is the best because you will loose all the junk that was installed on the disk and maybe slowed it, if you can't reinstall so
use the Norton ghost to clone the disk to the new one.

Caesar

[Michael Steele_2]

New disk technology is always faster, note the seek times of both disks.

Master and slave are priorities used when sharing the same controller. The master disk is the first disk the BIOS sees. The O/S always goes on the master because of this higher priority.

There will be jumpers on each drive to be used for configuring master and slave. Note these jumpers and change them before powering up.

There are usually two controllers. Controller 1 will be the seen by the BIOS after controller 0 so again, priorities determine that the O/S goes on controller 0.

controller 0, master disk = O/S
controller 0, slave disk
controller 1, master disk
controller 1, slave disk

SCSI is faster than IDE.

Some motherboards are real slow, and won't be able to fully utilize the speed of the newer disk. Oftentimes new disks require new motherboards.

Check for limitations and disk size barriers with the motherboard manufacturer.

I use Powerquest Drive Image instead of Ghost. (* It was on sale at COMPUSA when I was looking / shopping. *)

[Ozzie M]

Thanks you Guys, some good advice here!!!!
I've found a copy of 'Powerquests' DriveCopy and am just summoning up the courage to try it out.

If I clone the drive and switch the jumpers will Windows then load up automatically from the new drive or will I need to amend the BIOS or any system files?

Ozzie M.

[Michael Steele_2]

When you change the jumpers and the disks from slave to master you have to go into the BIOS and verify configuration. Each motherboard has their own guidelines to follow, but 'auto detect' is the norm. This would be applied to both.

If you don't have a motherboard manual then paste in the model and manufacturer and someone will provide a link to it. Or, you can probably download it from the Internet yourself.

Always use the manufacturer's procedure, there's too much variance out their to have one standard procedure for all motherboards on all PC's.