New Harddrive install...

Good evening Most honored gentlemen. On the marrow I shall endevor to purchase and install a new 250 GB harddrive. Scince I am relatively new to this geekhood thing, I would like some instruction on how to install and format the new device. I expect that I will use Windows XP default formatting, I can think of no reason to get creative at this point and just getting the thing installed and running like a charm is far more my objective than anything fancy. So, How about it, any of you experienced geek types got the words of great wisdom for the greenhorn?

Actually, I am pretty sure that the installation process is covered, but, doing the format is the part I am sure to not have a clue about. A quick run down form the switch on, boot up,etc....>Finis...

Thanks for all of your time, see ya tomarrow.

Oh, by the way, this will be the second of two harddrives in the system. The original one will remain as is. Thanks Again.

 

If you install Xp as you stated in your post the formatting is simple.
XP will format the disk before it installs if thats what you want it to do. just make sure you set your BIOS to boot from cd rom first so it reads the XP disk and starts it.

 

depending on what your use for this drive is, there are 2 options.

1) you are using this drive as a storage drive complimenting your windows drive. here you would install the drive with the correct jumper settings, boot to windows, and partition and format the drive through disk management (start>run diskmgmt.msc)

2.) this is going to be your new Windows (boot) drive. Here, install the drive (preferably unplug all other hard drives until install is complete), and set the BIOS to boot from CDROM first. Boot from your XP disk, and follow windows setup. I strongly recommend creating a smaller Windows partiton so that in the event of a reformat, you only need to backup the data on that partition. I usually use a 30GB windows partiton, and later partition the rest of the drive as storage.

windows setup will walk you through formatting and install--its a pretty simple process. when it is finished, you'll need to install your motherboard chipset drivers, your video and audio drivers, run windows updates, and get an antivirus on there ASAP.

 

good advice

 

OK, It's in. Ready for action. With any kind of luck at all, meny good years of service in the future. Thanks for your input.

 

This is what I did with my "new" 30 gig hard drive. Working like a charm for me. Amazing how few programs one actually uses. "Keeper" has them. "Testing" is for ones I download and test, until I make up my mind. I would suggest partitioning your big hard drive into 4 (maximum you can do, I believe) partitions, using similar logic to what I have adopted.
Your partition sizes will be different to mine, of course, due to your much bigger HD.

Read all the posts from #1 to finish to understand what I did. Bazza
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=63971

 

Great thanks, turns out that I have some problems with this after all. I actually started to move some programs around and the system didn't like it and crashed on me. I then tried to do a restore point from the past three days and the computer informed me that none of the restore points were successful. Next step was a backup restore which was fairly recent. got my system back to pre-installation configuration, but, trying to reformat the new hard drive using the Western Digital Disc made my sound system inoperative. Three Restores, and three losses of sound makes it unanamous. Also it seemed to have started the system giving me an error when I go to shutdown the system, or sometimes when I just stsrt to access a folder, and say's No disc in drive E, Please insert a disc in the disc drive to continue, or something like that.

In order to format using Disk Management what do I do, I didn't seem to be able to get the thing to work. Actually that's not true, I just this moment brought up disk management and started the reformat. So we will see how it works then. I will look at all of this stuff you guy's have suggested and get back to you, as it stands right now, I should be good to go. At least until I screw something else up. I will check into the partitioning. thanks a bundle. I don't know what I would do without you people.

 

was your new h/d to be an extra drive or were you going to use it to replace your current h/d?

it sounds like you installed it as an extra drive, then you started to move some windows files to the new h/d and things stopped working (crashed)?

basically (as the others had mentioned) you install your new drive (check jumper settings), format it using the oem disk that came with your new drive or use windows to format it, then it's ready to use.

at this point (just a recommendation) i'd do a low level format on your new h/d (to make it like new again). backup anything on your computer that you want/need (pictures, music, etc., etc.) to your new h/d, and reinstall your os. should you decide on this route (which will need to be done), i'd unplug the new h/d until after you have your os installed again. - sos

 

well, i wasn't able to edit it (ran out of time). the only reason i said you'd have to reinstall your os, is because of all the problems that you said you had, no sound, shutdown, and folder problem. if you can't get your errors fixed, then i'd reinstall your os. - sos

 

ACK! Never move programs from one hard drive to the other. The registry points to locations where you installed certain programs. You can move images, music, and similar items to the other drive. If you want to move an actual program that you installed, I'd uninstall the program and reinstall on the other drive.

Or, you can move the contents of the program to the other drive, but then you are going to have to modify registry entries and perhaps even .ini files. It all can be done, easier to uninstall/reinstall......

 

OK, to SOS first, Actually I didn't move any OS stuff, I just UNINSTALLED programs that I had myself installed, to reinstall them on the new harddrive, to clear up some space on the original harddrive. On at least one, Motherboard Monitor, it redflagged me and said,"if you uninstall this program some programs may cease to function. Do you still want to uninstall this program?"

Guess they weren't kidding. My OS did a blue screen of death shortly thereafter and I did infact have to do backup restore, ( complete rewrite of the OS harddrive to a backup record that you install at a time when the system is functioning properly and you pretty much have the programming the way you want it) and then tried to reinstall the new harddrive software, and found out that every time I installed it, it took out my sound system. I redid the backup restore three times before I got the message that I could not use the WD software to format the new harddrive. I finally got it formatted using Disk manager, but haven't put anything on it yet because I don't want to try to move any of the programs from the old to the new, yet.

I am considering doing a factory restore, which basically restores my system back to the original programming that it came with, and reprogramming all of my programs on the new harddrive and keep the old harddrive clean of anything except those programs that deal with the basic OS and security of the system such as AVG, Spybot, and Ad Aware.

As far as I know I didn't do anything wrong, that should have caused problems with the OS itself, but evidently some of the programs I installed don't want to be uninstalled.

There are only three types of programs I have installed to date. Programs that deal with security of my system. Programs that deal with diagnosing and repairing my system. Programs that deal with modifying and customizing my system to reflect my own individual taste.

Appearantly the system didn't agree.

I would be interested in input from everyone on harddrive partitioning. I have been doing some research in the wake of BB's recommendation that I partition my new one, but I have found that one scource in particular say's, "Unless you have some compelling reason to partition a harddrive, it is best not to, because you will eventually runout of space on one of the partitions and regret it." File folders are a much more flexible and infinitely expandable organizing tool.

Currently my original harddrive has three separate and effective backup devices on them and I really can't see the need for another redundant system backup, so as far as I can see, I have no compelling reason. anyone who thinks they have a compelling reason, feel free to state it, and we will see if we can sort out all of the reasons when you should partition, and when you should not. I am intrested in your opinions on this.

 

The reason for my suggestion on partitioning drives comes from the fact that we download all sorts of stuff, run them once or twice, then forget about them.

Our C:\program Files folder grows and grows and eventually we run out of hard drive space.

By having a "TESTING" partition, or folder, you can download, install and test stuff before you decide if yiou want to "KEEPER" them.

This will keep your programs down to stuff you ACTUALLY USE.

With your 250gig drive, using this system, I would be surprised if you ever run out of space, unless you are keeping copies of movies, etc., on your drive. Bazza

===

 

So true BB. I cannot for the life of me figure out where I would use all of this Harddrive space, but, I would like to point out that every day, vital programs are constantly growing larger and larger, and are not likely to stop, things like anti-virus's especially. Not only that, when you get to the point where harddrive space is cheaper and cheaper, software writers are going to start writing larger and larger programs, because the space is there, and that invites them to fill it up. Look for these larger programs to get much more user friendly as a result, but for you guys who think you have enough memory now, force you eventually to buy more harddrive space.

Harddrive is working fine now, and I did decide to do the complete factory restore just to get my system set up the way I wanted. Check out the software link and see what I have to say about a little program called Error Fixer.

My next upgrade will be RAM. I don't think I will be doing anything for a while after that, and I will be waiting for the best buy I can get per MB. My current RAM is Nanya, a Stick that they don't even manufacture any more, so it means that I will need all new RAM for Compatibility reasons, unless some of you Know another stick that does work with the one I have.

NT256D64S88B1G6K-184pin Unbuffered 256 MB-333 MHZ DDR SDRAM(I think) PC2700.

They must have got a really good deal on this stuff when they bought it. Buying obselete stuff And putting it in a system and selling it. Later