[Bahlzeron]

So I'm thinkin it's about time to upgrade my old 80g hard drive, it's about 5-6 years old (roughly) and been used rather heavily, pretty much I've used abused and put it away wet so to speak. From what I understand is that I can "mirror" the contents over to another drive (which I have no clue how to do). I have a few Q's about:

A.
1. upgrade to SATA or stick with IDE?

2. if I do go to SATA, my mobo is sata 150, is sata 300 backwards compatible? (SATA 300 has a much better selection is all)

B. How much, if at all, will Windows XP complain about the switch to a new drive?


My current hard drive is a Western Digital Caviar model WDC WD800JB-00ETA0 (80.0GB), I'd like to upgrade to about 200-300GB (or more).

I haven't done much research on drives yet as I wanted to see what I'm gettin myself into first.

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Hi there Bahlzeron,

I used to have that exact hard drive, it failed on me after 1.5 years!

Answers:

A) 1) Upgrade to SATA, definitely
A) 2) Yes it's backwards compatible, it will just run at the 150 speed, which is still better than IDE

B) XP pretty much shouldn't complain, it will just need to install the drivers for the new hard drive. Once you have "mirrored" the drive contents (you need a dedicated program for this, I recommend Acronis True Image), XP should load the same on the new drive and then you'll see the small "Found New Hardware" notification box and it will "install" the new hard drive... But there shouldn't be any problems.

I currently have a 250GB Seagate HDD, they are excellent and quiet, also Seagate have a 5-year warranty

I hope this helps some, feel free to ask more questions.

Troy.

[Troy]

Hi there Bahlzeron,

I used to have that exact hard drive, it failed on me after 1.5 years!

Answers:

A) 1) Upgrade to SATA, definitely
A) 2) Yes it's backwards compatible, it will just run at the 150 speed, which is still better than IDE

B) XP pretty much shouldn't complain, it will just need to install the drivers for the new hard drive. Once you have "mirrored" the drive contents (you need a dedicated program for this, I recommend Acronis True Image), XP should load the same on the new drive and then you'll see the small "Found New Hardware" notification box and it will "install" the new hard drive... But there shouldn't be any problems.

I currently have a 250GB Seagate HDD, they are excellent and quiet, also Seagate have a 5-year warranty

I hope this helps some, feel free to ask more questions.

Troy.

[Bahlzeron]

sweet.. that puts me at ease a bit.. now I have a question about the sata controllers.. more than likely windows is gonna need them when I switch C drive from IDE to SATA. So how do I go about making sure it reads the new drive as the master?


Thanx for the help troy!



how's this look for a HDD? http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822148262

Edited by Bahlzeron, 16 January 2008 - 06:14 AM.

[james_8970]

Just be warned, that the 10th generation (7200.10) are very loud when seeking.
James

Edited by james_8970, 16 January 2008 - 11:38 AM.

[Bahlzeron]

oh really?.. though I'm not worried about noise. Good to know so I dont think something is wrong with it (after I can afford to get it in about 3-5 weeks).

[Troy]

Well I'm very happy with the performance of mine, and it's not overly loud at all when seeking - yes I have that exact HDD now! Why don't you just buy my computer while we're at it?

If your current HDD is still working, why don't you buy the new one, plug it in as an "extra" and boot up - just testing if your computer recognises everything nicely. Then you should be able to remove the old one, install the new one and put Windows on it. Then re-install the old one again (this time as a slave), and you should boot into the new Windows install and you can copy all your data over (pictures, documents etc...). Or if you really want, you could ghost an image like we discussed (I recommended Acronis True Image).

To change the order of the drives around, you need to do that within the BIOS. Whilst IDE hard drives have a master/slave setting that needs attention, SATA drives just plug straight in and then you tell it where you want it within the BIOS. Look for a menu called "Boot Order Priority" or maybe "First Boot Device" or something similar.

Troy

[Bahlzeron]

ok kool thanks alot.

[Doby]

XXclone works great with XP not with vista and is free.

. if I do go to SATA, my mobo is sata 150, is sata 300 backwards compatible? (SATA 300 has a much better selection is all)

Some drives have a jumper you need to set to make them compatible with 150, troy has the drive so he would know if you need t do this.

Sorry for butting in but just wanted to add my 2 cents for what it worth

[Troy]

Some drives have a jumper you need to set to make them compatible with 150, troy has the drive so he would know if you need t do this.

Sorry for butting in but just wanted to add my 2 cents for what it worth

Never a problem to butt in! I do have that hard drive, but it's with a SATA 300 mobo, so I'm not sure about using a jumper or not. My last SATA HDD on the SATA 150 motherboard was a Samsung and it wouldn't boot if I did put the jumper on, so I had to leave it off...

To the OP - I'm sure you'll work it out!

Troy

[Bahlzeron]

I think I'll be able to figure it out without much hassle.. if not then I can always ask for assistance.


Thanks alot guys!