Newsgroup: it.comp.hardware.storage
Titolo: Tips on upgrading primary/boot HD on heavily tricked out system (Micron PC)?

Hi Folks!
I am seeking advice from the HD upgrade wizards re the best way to upgrade
the primary/boot HD on a fairly heavily tricked out Micron PC (used for
audio recording/mixing), which already has a 2nd HD attached …
The new primary/boot HD will be a Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM HD (Model No given is:
ST 0154000U , which is a KIT and contains I believe – after talking to the
Maxtor people – the 40Gig drive Model No: 54098U8 ie., an Ultra ATA _66_
drive).
Some system specs:
· PC is a Micron Millennia 350 system (Intel Seattle 2 Motherboard #SE440BX
, purchased June 98) with a total of 160MB RAM on several DIMMS
· the current primary/boot HD is a 6.4GB ATA _33_ HD, divided into 3
_partitions_ of about 2 GB each (currently with drive letters C:, E: and F:)
and running Win 98 (upgraded from W95, factory installed)
· The 2nd HD is a 20.5GB IDE ATA _33_ 7200 RPM HD and is not partitioned
(currently Drive D:)
· Both of these HDs are connected to a 32-BIT Local Bus Ultra ATA Hard Drive
controller card (Ref No:#CC0014, not sure of brand), with the FIRST HD on
the cable chain from the controller card being the 2ndary/20.5GB HD and the
SECOND OR LAST HD on the cable being the primary/boot 6.4GB HD
· BIOS is PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0
· There is also an internal 32x IDE CD-ROM (Drive R:) an internal Zip drive
(Drive Z:), both hooked onto an IDE connector on the motherboard, with the
Zip drive the first device in the chain and the CD-ROM the second.
· There is an 6x4x24 external CD-RW drive w/SCSI card (drive W:).
· There is a spare power connecter in the box, a spare drive bay and I
believe, 2 spare PCI slots
· Lastly, In case it’s useful, vid card is a Diamond Viper 330 66MHz AGP
card, sound card it shipped with is a Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64
Sound Card - and a multi-track digital sound card has also been installed
for recording.
· Modem is a 3Com/US Robotics 56K Data Fax WinModem.
My questions include:
What is the best way to perform the upgrade of the primary HD?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
Given that there is a spare power connector in the box and a spare drive
bay, and I believe that the Maxtor kit ships with Maxtor’s MaxBlast Plus
drive installation/transfer utility - which seems to make pretty light work
of transferring the entire contents of a boot drive IF both the old and new
drives are hooked up at the same time, should I simply hook up the NEW drive
while keeping BOTH ‘old’ HDs online while I transfer the contents of the old
to the new primary/boot HD?
If so, how exactly would I go about cabling/hooking up the new drive? For
example, given that both of the ‘old’ drives are ATA33s, I guess that a new
_66_ PCI controller card will be necessary and Micron is suggesting the
Promise Ultra ATA 100 card (see:
http://www.micronadditions.com/cgi-bin/bp/1266435702/technotes.html?a=f&f=p&
d=533120 ). Is this a good card or are there any gotchas or better cards
that I should consider?
So, should I simply place the new controller card in the PCI slot, the new
Maxtor HD in the available drive bay and hook it up to the new controller
card using the special ATA66 cable and then change BIOS settings to enable
the 3rd HD – or are there gotchas with doing it this way? (And will the
MaxBlast software be able to handle the presence of 3HDs?)
If not, how should I approach the task?
Do I have to worry about the partitioning/drive lettering?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Given that the current primary/boot drive is partitioned – and with the
current drive letter assignments interspersed between current primary and
secondary HDs – is this something that I have to worry about? Should I at
least make the drive lettering contiguous as far as drives are concerned
(eg., C:, D: & E: for primary HD and then F: for the secondary HD) and
indeed, will I have any probs transferring the _partitioned_ contents of a
primary HD from the old to the new primary HD?
Are there any other gotchas or issues that I should be thinking about.
TIA for any words of wisdom from the wise!
/david

secondary HDs
An avoidable original configuration mistake.


 An avoidable original configuration mistake.
Can I change the drive lettering (to be contiguous) before we add the new
drive? Do I need something like Partition Magic to do it? What is good drive
lettering practice here?
Thanks again Ron!
/d

lettering practice here?
You need an overall plan from now to final desired drive letters and
contents and that gets complicated.

Thanks again Ron!
Based precisely on your advice, we're now looking at the IBM Deskstar 75GXP
45GB ATA100 HD, which certainly seems superior to the Maxtor!
One question (which I'm still trying to get an answer on from IBM): is the
DiskManager2000 software that ships with the IBM 45GB 75GXP kit (or for that
matter, the MaxBlast PLus software that ships with the Maxtor HD) to handle
data migration, able to work with the Promise ATA100 controller card that we
intend to hook the new HD into? Or does it expect to see the new drive
hooked _directly_ on the motherboard IDE connectors? (In that case, I'd have
to hook the card to the [2ndary] IDE connector, do the transfer using the
software and then only after that, pop in the controller card and relocate
the cable from motherboard to CC.)
Do you are others here have any wisdom on this question?
TIA!
/david

the cable from motherboard to CC.)
That should work too.

 wrote in message
news:9b786f$1g9$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...


available for > 32GB support.  
I have a 45MB GXP-75 working on this m/b just fine.  If the poster has
a native IDE port available, do NOT fool around with an add-on card.
(Did that and had plenty of trouble)  Just update it to the latest
BIOS from Micron's support site and you'll be in good shape.
SteveR
s.r.r.2 a.t w.i.n.s.o.c.k.e.t d.o.t c.o.m 

Thanks Steve!
/do
"SteveR" <ple...@see.sig> wrote in message
news:r6ohdtcdkvkn8oj9c...@4ax.com...


45GB ATA100 HD, which certainly seems superior to the Maxtor!
"Ron's advice" is always for IBM because he is an IBM shill.  
You might want to search for problems on that 45GB model of 75GPX.  At
the least have a good backup plan!

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