IDE master / Slave Question

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

MC wrote in message
...
Dave Hau wrote

If you need to access two drives concurrently, you need to put
them on separate channels. From your description, I get the
impression that you need to access your old system drive and
your new large data drive concurrently. If that's the case, I would
put them on separate channels, for example the system drive
on primary master, and the data drive on secondary master.

Thanks - that sounds like a good idea.

I bet you wouldnt be able to pick it in a double blind trial without using
a
benchmark or diagnostic. And most dont copy between drives that much.

The only time you are likely to notice anything is if you
image one of the 20GB drives to the new 120GB drive.

Another scenario: you're watching a divx movie while surfing the web. The
divx movie comes from the large data drive, surfing the web requires access
to the browser cache on the system drive. I do this all the time.

Cheers,
Dave




It seems like that would also solve the speed problem related
to having the new drive slaved to the old, at least re teh new drive.

Nope, that doesnt happen. The new drive will operate at the same speed
regardless of whether its master or slave, or the only drive on a
particular cable.

Regarding not being able to boot off the new drive after copying
the old system partition to the new drive using MaxBlast, my guess
is maybe Maxblast did not copy over the MBR for you. Try booting
off of the Windows installation disk, go to repair console, and do
"fixmbr". See if you can now boot from that disk.

I think the problem with the system transfer is more extensive than
that.

Yeah, looks like it.

I tried several times - the older Maxblast would just abort with an
error.
The new version of the software would complete the transfer without
incident. The first time it completed this I could boot my system, but
the
user settings were all messed up - Win XP came up like a brand new
install,
re-initialized itself, and about halft my apps and personal settings
were gone.

Urk.

The second and htird times Win Xp woudl start to boot and then
crash due to missing files. After the third try I ran chkdsk and
wound up with abut 4 gigs of files in the Found folder. At that
point I decided I could not trust the software to the system.

Yeah, its obviously making a complete hash of the copy.

Ghost or Drive Image will do it fine, but they aint free.

Thanks - I'll switch the drive onto the other
channel till I get a chance to re-install.

No point if its only short term.

And you might decide to buy Ghost or
Drive Image instead of doing a reinstall.

"MC" wrote in message
...

"Dave Hau" wrote in message
...
If you need to access two drives concurrently, you need to put them on
separate channels. From your description, I get the impression that you
need to access your old system drive and your new large data drive
concurrently. If that's the case, I would put them on separate
channels, for example the system drive on primary master, and the data
drive on secondary master.

Thanks - that sounds like a good idea. It seems like that would also
solve
the speed problem related to having the new drive slaved to the old, at
least re teh new drive.


Regarding not being able to boot off the new drive after copying the old
system partition to the new drive using MaxBlast, my guess is maybe
Maxblast did not copy over the MBR for you. Try booting off of the
Windows installation disk, go to repair console, and do "fixmbr". See
if you can now boot from that disk.

I think the problem with the system transfer is more extensive than that.
I
tried several times - the older Maxblast would just abort with an error.
The
new version of the software would complete the transfer without incident.
The first time it completed this I could boot my system, but the user
settings were all messed up - Win XP came up like a brand new install,
re-initialized itself, and about halft my apps and personal settings were
gone. The second and htird times Win Xp woudl start to boot and then
crash
due to missing files. After the third try I ran chkdsk and wound up with
abut 4 gigs of files in the Found folder. At that point I decided I could
not trust the software to the system.

Sounds like it's time to give up on MaxBlast and get a copy of Ghost 2003.
;-)

Norton Systemworks Pro 2003 contains Ghost and sells for as low as $11 on
pricewatch. Go to http://www.pricewatch.com and do a search for
"systemworks pro 2003".

Cheers,
Dave






Thanks - I'll switch the drive onto the other channel till I get a chance
to
re-install.

- MCC

Dave Hau wrote in
message .com...
Rod Speed wrote
MC wrote
Dave Hau wrote

If you need to access two drives concurrently, you need to put
them on separate channels. From your description, I get the
impression that you need to access your old system drive and
your new large data drive concurrently. If that's the case, I would
put them on separate channels, for example the system drive
on primary master, and the data drive on secondary master.

Thanks - that sounds like a good idea.

I bet you wouldnt be able to pick it in a double blind trial without using a
benchmark or diagnostic. And most dont copy between drives that much.

The only time you are likely to notice anything is if you
image one of the 20GB drives to the new 120GB drive.

Another scenario: you're watching a divx movie while surfing the web.
The divx movie comes from the large data drive, surfing the web requires
access to the browser cache on the system drive. I do this all the time.

Time to invest in a decent DVD player |-)

It seems like that would also solve the speed problem related
to having the new drive slaved to the old, at least re teh new drive.

Nope, that doesnt happen. The new drive will operate at the same speed
regardless of whether its master or slave, or the only drive on a
particular cable.

Regarding not being able to boot off the new drive after copying
the old system partition to the new drive using MaxBlast, my guess
is maybe Maxblast did not copy over the MBR for you. Try booting
off of the Windows installation disk, go to repair console, and do
"fixmbr". See if you can now boot from that disk.

I think the problem with the system transfer is more extensive than
that.

Yeah, looks like it.

I tried several times - the older Maxblast would just abort with an
error.
The new version of the software would complete the transfer without
incident. The first time it completed this I could boot my system, but
the
user settings were all messed up - Win XP came up like a brand new
install,
re-initialized itself, and about halft my apps and personal settings
were gone.

Urk.

The second and htird times Win Xp woudl start to boot and then
crash due to missing files. After the third try I ran chkdsk and
wound up with abut 4 gigs of files in the Found folder. At that
point I decided I could not trust the software to the system.

Yeah, its obviously making a complete hash of the copy.

Ghost or Drive Image will do it fine, but they aint free.

Thanks - I'll switch the drive onto the other
channel till I get a chance to re-install.

No point if its only short term.

And you might decide to buy Ghost or
Drive Image instead of doing a reinstall.

"MC" wrote in message ...
My thanks to everyone who took the time to answer my questions.

As it turns out, I've been able to copy the drive over using Maxblast
afterall.

I'll skip the details of how I bungled through it, but basically I wound up
re-partioning the new drive and then formatting it as FAT32. After that the
disk copy under Maxblast went fine. I then setup the new drive as the
master and converted it to NTFS using the Win XP conversion tool.

So now I'm where I wanted to be, with most everything on C:, D: as a
scractch drive for Photoshop, and E: as a holding pen for stuff to burn on
CDR's.

Thanks again!

Thats for the feedback, much too rare in my opinion.