[Dave B(TotalVR)]

Ok, Just one question, I think I have it up and running now, I just need to restart after installing the raid drivers. how do I completely copy my old hard disk, all in one, every byte to the new disk then start putting things like mp3's and videos on my older hard disk. I am going to relegate my 40GB 60gxp to storage and swap file, is there some kind of utility that can just swap it all over, windows xp installation included?

Dave

[Dave B(TotalVR)]

Oh yeah, I should probably add, its the 10,000 RPM WD Raptor of the 76.8GB variety... :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P

[trinibwoy]

Drive image might be your best bet. Ghost doesn't work that great for system partitions in my experience

And please don't put your swap file on that 40GB IBM. It will be much more useful on the raptor given the seek time differential.

[Dave B(TotalVR)]

OMG, this is really gay, I cant access my disk for some reason. I think it wants me to create a raid array. Sure I'll create a mirroring RAID with the one disk. Only when I go to the bios options for the RAID controller I get 'create array' 'delete array' and so on, I cant select any of the options, it says use the up and down arrows but they do nothing. The only key that DOEs do something is the bloody escape key, so at least I can exit without having to reboot! WTF??

[trinibwoy]

Huh? What mobo / sata controller do you have?

[Dave B(TotalVR)]

I ahve the abit KV7 with the KT600 chipset using the VT6410 controller.

[Dio]

My VIA KT800 based board needs drivers to be recognised by Windows. I created the floppy (yes, it had to be floppy) for the setup CD using a disk image writer on the motherboard CD.

If you want to access them from outside Windows you may be cream crackered.

[LeStoffer]

Originally Posted by Dave B(TotalVR)

OMG, this is really gay, I cant access my disk for some reason. I think it wants me to create a raid array. Sure I'll create a mirroring RAID with the one disk.

You don't need (want) to create a raid array of course:

Originally Posted by Dio

My VIA KT800 based board needs drivers to be recognised by Windows. I created the floppy (yes, it had to be floppy) for the setup CD using a disk image writer on the motherboard CD.

Indeed. Once WinXP Install (from CD) ask whether you need to install a SCSI driver say yes, and load the sata driver from a floopy. Very old fashion, but these are the pesky rules.

Beyond that: Enjoy the drive, it is wonderful! 8)

[Rep99099]

Yeah, I bought the 74 gig raptors a few months ago, they are leet...

Specs:
----------
Coolermaster Wavemaster
Aerocool Aeropower II 550W PSU
Asus P4C800 Deluxe
Intel P4 2.6 @ 3.5
Corsair 1024MB PC4000 Dual Channel DDR w/ 18 Activity LEDs
(2) WD 74 GB Raptors 10,000RPM @ Raid 0
Getting HIS X800XT PE or Sapphire Toxic X800XT PE

[Dave B(TotalVR)]

Yeah but I already have windows xp installed, but I cant get it to acknowledge the existance of my raptor... I got the drivers installed but it aint doin shite...

[trinibwoy]

Yeah I would recommend a single 74GB raptor. I used to be a big fan of Raid a couple years ago when all I cared about were HDTach and ATTO scores. However, the fast seek times of the raptor has a much more noticeable impact than the increased STR of a raid-0 setup.

[Dave B(TotalVR)]

Right, I think what I need to do now is partition it, there is no fdisk in windows xp so how exactly do I go about doing this????

[Dave B(TotalVR)]

Right, I got it running in windows now.

So about moving my entire old hard disk over to the raptor. Is there some way I can do it in one foul swoop?

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by Dave B(TotalVR)

Right, I got it running in windows now.

So about moving my entire old hard disk over to the raptor. Is there some way I can do it in one foul swoop?

DiscWizard For Windows should work with all drives, even non-Seagate ones.

[Guden Oden]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

And please don't put your swap file on that 40GB IBM. It will be much more useful on the raptor given the seek time differential.

Please don't put your swap file on the same harddisk as your system/games partition(s), even if the other available harddrive is considerably slower. Head seeks are still incredibly slow even on the fastest 15krpm drives today, having swap on its own drive is a major performance boost. Preferably swap should be on a different IDE channel too since (unlike SCSI), IDE can only access device at a time on the bus, but that is of less importance than having two separate head actuators for data and swap.

[Dio]

I've often wondered about those two cases. Does anybody have any benchmarks to back any of that up?

[Guden Oden]

Which two cases?

As for me, I can FEEL the difference. I used to have swap on my main drive for quite a while because my GXP60 developed squeaking bearings, but then the main drive did that too (GXP120), so I thought what the heck... Bootup in XP isn't much difference until I actually log in and it launches all 15.000 programs I have in my systray.

Also, loading up a level in farcry is LOTS faster with two drives. Not that I play farcry anymore though because I can't get past the damn helicarrier deck level because the game chugs so bad at that point.

[Dio]

Fast drive sharing swapfile vs. slower drive with separate swap

[Guden Oden]

Well I didn't make any benchmarks, but trust me, the difference is considerable. Seeking within the swap file isn't as big an issue as seeking back and forth between the data area and the swap area of the same harddrive.

That's why it's dumb to RAID0 two fast harddrives instead of setting them up as independent units. Seek times do not get improved in that scenario, and seeks is the major performance limiter when it comes to disk operations.

[Quitch]

A lot of people "feel" differences which don't exist. Give us some hard numbers

However, you're dead right about RAID0

[Guden Oden]

Haha, no it's too much bother. My system is set up this way now, I don't plan on changing it.

Just think logically about it, you'll see why I am right. Just make sure the swapfile is the first file you put on the drive, that way it ends up right at the outer edge where disc accesses are the fastest, and there's no fragmentation in it either.

[Dave B(TotalVR)]

RIIIIGGHHHTTT

I used the seagate util (thanks 2 who posted it). Its copied everything across but I am still booting from my old disk and disbling the old disk in the bios does not cause me to boot from the new disk...

Im sure its just a small setting change/disk op left to do now :?

[trinibwoy]

Well I used to have my swap file on a slower seek time raid-0 setup and I also 'felt' the difference after bringing it back to my raptor :P

Originally Posted by Guden Oden

Seeking within the swap file isn't as big an issue as seeking back and forth between the data area and the swap area of the same harddrive.

I am not sure that your scenario of swapping between data areas of a hard-disk and the swap-file occurs very often. However, I can tell you that the vast majority of cases involves swapping between main memory and the swap file i.e during games. As such having the swap file on the faster seek time raptor 'feels' faster.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by Dave B(TotalVR)

I used the seagate util (thanks 2 who posted it). Its copied everything across but I am still booting from my old disk and disbling the old disk in the bios does not cause me to boot from the new disk...

Many of those utilities do not completely replicate all boot sector information. What exactly is the error you get when you try to boot from the new disk?

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Many of those utilities do not completely replicate all boot sector information. What exactly is the error you get when you try to boot from the new disk?

The Seagate one should if you tell it you are making a new boot disk. For a SATA boot disk, you often have to choose a "boot from SATA" option somewhere in the BIOS.