In article ,
"Rod Speed" wrote:

Phred wrote in message
...

I'm looking for a simple recipe to ensure success when trying to
install a second HDD on a Dell Dimension 4100 under Windows ME

Pay me to do it |-)

While that would be very convenient and enlightening, I don't think
it's very practical with you allegedly being down in the deep south in
that seedy drug city -- and that's not to mention the hole it would
make in my cheap plonk budget. %-)

(or even just mention of "gotchas" to avoid would be helpful .

Current 20GB drive is partitioned C, D, E, F using PM 6.0

Urk. Thats mad.

Yeah. Well, I'm inclined to agree and in fact I'd be more than happy
to ping off that "F". But C is not negotiable; D is the CDROM drive
on that "managed" machine I mentioned so is unchangeable; so I need a
"drive" E to align with the other's data drive and (because I'm
running Windows ME) I assume I can only get that by having a D of my
own somewhere on a HDD (the slave?).

I want to install a 2nd HDD (WD 120GB) either as slave on the
same cable, or on the second cable as master or slave (see below).

I also have a CDRW drive (as G), and will be looking to
install a combo DVD/CDRW *or* a DVD writer "soon". So
provision needs to be made for both these optical drives too.

You sure the effect on the cheap plonk supply is warranted ? |-(

For compatibility with another ("managed") system,
I need to keep the same HDD partitions,

Why ? Thats a madly complicated config.

See above.

but would see C and D as being on the present master
HDD with E and F on the new one, if this is possible.

Thats pretty mad too. You'd normally want to have the
boot drive on the new drive, just because it would normally
be much faster than the original old dinosaur 20GB drive.

But that would mean partitioning the new drive as say 20GB for system
and applications and the rest for data and working space. [One
problem I thought may exist with that approach may not exist if I've
understood one of your comments further down (q.v.).]

An alternative that would be nearly as convenient would be to
have C and F on the present drive with D and E on the new one.

I'd bin that complicated scheme myself.

I'm happy to bin F, but I need E. So, can I have C and E on the new
[let's assume master] drive with D on the old one as slave?

In fact, any combination that left C on the present
master (no doubt the only possibility anyway!)

Nope, you can have it on the 120GB drive and should.

Okay, okay... ;-)

and E plus another partition on the other drive, would be
acceptable (though that may mean some playing around with
existing batch files if the CDRW drive designation is changed,
and I would prefer not to have to do that -- but it could be done.)

You really should cut to the chase and have a much simpler
partitioning scheme, and the boot drive on the new 120GB drive.

There is also the issue of the best allocation of the HDDs and the
optical drive(s) to the cables. I've seen this recommended and
argued both ways: (1) keep the HDDs separate from the CDs so
that HDD activity is not so likely to interfere during CD writing; and
(2) put the CDs on separate cables so direct copy will work better.

The short story is that you are unlikely to be able to pick
the difference between those two configs with a proper
double blind trial and so its normally best to do whats
mechanically more convenient, and thats usually with
both hard drives on the same ribbon cable, and both
optical drives on the same ribbon cable. Just because
both hard drives are normally in the 3.5" bay stack and
both optical drives are normally in the 5" bay stack and
most ribbon cables dont have enough space between
the drive connectors to mix drives in different bay stacks.

Sounds reasonable. I was just a bit concerned about whether the CD
drives would do CD to CD copy reliably if both on the same cable
(bearing in mind the 4100 is only a P3 1.1GHz machine). But I
certainly don't want to get into the ribbon stretching game!

The main uses would be:
1. Existing drive stays as the system/applications drive (C),

Not a good idea, see above.

and may contain a second partition (D or F)
that would serve as a data backup area.

Its generally best to have the data backup on a different
physical drive to the drive that its backing up, obviously
so you dont lose everything on a single drive failure.

That was the idea! The data on E on the new drive and the backup on D
on the old one.

And the stuff thats absolutely irreplaceable
should be on multiple CDs as well.

Pretty well *all* my junk is on 4 (if not 6 CDs -- *finding* the
"irreplaceable" will be the problem if the time comes. 8-)

2. New drive would be the main working drive (E)

Its normally best as the boot drive too, because it will be much faster.

but would also contain a partition to hold maybe 2 or 3 "Ghosts"
of the system drive (probably at least a vanilla system installation

No reason why that cant be on the physical drive since its
mostly protecting you against a service pack install ****ing
the boot drive up or an app install etc doing the same.

Okay, here's where I may have been too pessimistic. I thought the
clones of C would have to be on a different physical drive. Are you
saying the "Ghosts" can simply be "files" on a separate partition of
the same physical drive as C? If so, that certainly would make a
difference to my approach, and remove that objection to having the new
drive as the master.

But one other thought occurs: Doing it this way is going to mean a
*lot* of thrashing of the drive whenever creating or using one of
these images, given that it would mean the transfer of maybe 20GB of
stuff from one place to another on the same physical drive each time.

and a second one with the main application software freshly
installed too). [Or maybe I don't really need a partition for
that as the "Ghosts" are basically just files aren't they?]

Correct. Image files are, anyway. You can also clone partitions and
drives but there isnt normally any real point in doing that for backup.

I was thinking of two or three clones of C he
1. Just the system and very basic stuff like drivers etc. installed.

2. The above plus the "standard" applications (MS Office, graphics,
and basic utilities for mail, web, FTP etc.).

And maybe,
3. The above plus other stable installations as they are required.
(This one would be "temporary" in that it could be overwritten by new
versions when other stuff is added. I'm thinking I should probably
start with this one for my present working system so I can recover
somewhat if I have problems with that fresh install approach.)

3. The CDRW would mostly be used for backups and
other copies of data from E, and also for backup copies
of program CDs (and that may involve direct CD to CD
copies in future when I get the second optical drive).

I dont normally do it that way even when I do have the drives
that allow that. Its generally best to have the copy program
just copy it to the hard drive auto and use the same drive for
both the original and the copy. Modern burners are so much
faster that that approach has little effect on the total copy time

True. But you do have to swap CDs that way, and it's been my habit to
do this sort of copying while doing other (non-computer) things. So
the thought of just loading the drives and coming back later to a job
done instead of half done, is pretty appealing.

now. And you dont actually do that that much so there isnt
any point in getting all anal about the time it takes anyway.

It would usually only need to interact
with C during program installations.

And you cant normally even measure any difference in the total install
time with the two drives on different ribbon cables for variour reasons.

4. A temporary consideration is the best (i.e. most convenient)
way of getting nearly 8GB of data off the present E partition
onto the new drive and into the new "E".

Most convenient to use ghost or drive image. You appear to
want to use that for boot partition backup anyway so you might
as well use it for the reconfig at new hard drive install time too.

I'm starting to see a lot of "gotchas" looming here for the neophyte!
And if it all goes pear shaped I won't have access to the USENET "help
desk" of collective wisdom to sort it out! (That's one reason I was
hoping for a pointer to a "recipe book" of instructions for doing this
sort of thing. I clearly need to give the actual approach rather more
thought. The idea of installing a second HDD seemed pretty simple at
the time. 8-)

I can think of possibilities with PM, but it may
come down to CD shuffling in the end. :-(

Nope, it never does.

Just get ghost and use it for the reconfig.

Hints, guidance, recommendations, links most welcome.

Thanks very much for your input, Rod.


Cheers, Phred.

--
LID