JC,
> I have a 10 gig hard drive which is about full. My friend gave me a 40gig
> which I thought i would
> add, so I wouldn't have to do anything to my old drive but move data.
> and vidio over to the new drive. He said it may have an operating
> system on it, so how will my computer know which one to recognize?
*If the 40 G drive was set as master you can leave it that way long
enough to see whether the OS on that drive will work.
Even if it is an old OS it may work long enough to transfer files from
you 10 G drive. If the 40 G drive is an old one you may wish to upgrade
the OS before transferring the files. At the same time you may want to
partition the drive so that you will have a separate data partition. You
can use the OS install disk to do that.
The three drive settings are Single, Master with slave and slave. And
Single may be the same setting as Master on some drives. You will want
to set the 10 G as slave in either case. *The other question is will my
older mobo, bios, cmos recognize a 40 gig hard drive. I'm guessing it
will but I can't say for certain. You can simply try it to see what size
it shows in the bilos setup.
> I am very unclear on how to partition and/or format if required
Assuming that the bios will recognize the whole 40 G and you have a new
OS install disk you can use that to partition that drive. Of course this
will also blow away any data files that may be on it. The only way to
avoid this is to have a non destructive partitioning program like
Partition Magic. The latest version can be purchased for $ 80 and can be
downloaded.
> To format, do I go to safe mode or some other type of diagnostic(tapping f1
> or delete
> during start up?).
The formatting issue depends on the OS that was on the 40 G drive. If it
was XP or NT it will have NTFS which cannot be partitioned or
reformatted using a bootable DOS disk. An XP install disk may be your
only option. If the 40 G drive has ME, 98 or older OS you can use a
bootable DOS disk to delete partitions and reformat, but this will
destroy all data.
> Assuming the new drive appears in My Computer, what is my next step?
You could just set the other drive as slave and copy files to the larger
one but then if you should want to upgrade the OS you will destroy the
data. Data partitions are always the best approach if you have no other
place to back them up, like a CD Burner.
> Try to move some data over? If it works, I am set!
Moving the data over is fairly easy. It's no different from moving
around on the same partition. I wuld create a folder or folders for the
data, with appropriate folder labels.
> If the data doesn't tranfer, what is my nx step?
There is no reason why the data should not transfer unless the drive is
full.
> If My Computer doesn't recoznize the drive, what if anything can I do then?
Again, that should not happen if it is not defective.
> Maybe look for an older 10 or 20 gig harddrive? Or just buy the 2.0 usb and
> attach an external drive!
It will probably be difficult to find a drive that small except used.
Actually in terms of cost, the 2.0 USB and an external is the best
approach.
Jim
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