2 hard drives question

[october]

I have just replaced my hard drive. I still have the old one with my stuff on it.

If I open my computer up and switch them back, will I be able to boot and run off the old one? And if so, will I then be able to put the new one back in and run from it without having to do anything tricky?

 

[DaEezT]

Well....
Lemme roll my eyes first :crazyeyes

So, why do you want to put your old one in and boot from it? Simply put both in. The new one as Master, the oldone as slave. that way you are still able to use your old HDD's diskspace and access any files on it.
For that you've got to look at the back of your old HDD (where u plug those fancy cables in) and change the jumpers acording to the figures on your HDD (there should be a table with all jumper settings) and make it "slave". then you take your IDE cable (I am bold and assume u've got IDE) and connect both HDDs to it. Then you look at your BIOS and set Primary Master & Slave on Auto Detect and everything should work.

 

[CornMaster]

You can do Master/Slave if you want....but if you do make sure that the Master is on the end connector of the IDE cable, and the Slave is on the Middle connector. Otherwise they will conflict.

The easiest way to do it is to set both to Cable Select (CS or CSE) and then put the one you want as Master on the end and the one you want as Slave in the middle. This way there is no need for conflicts.

Now...if both drives have a boot sector (OS like Windows) and you boot both up...it should check the Master first, but sometimes it won't. So you have to be careful when you hook two drives up.

 

[DaEezT]

Well, I only tried Cable Select once and had nothing but trouble :/
You have to set the jumpers once anyway so I would prefer the manual Master/Slave selection over that fancy Cable Select thigny

 

[CornMaster]

Originally posted by DaEezT
Well, I only tried Cable Select once and had nothing but trouble :/
You have to set the jumpers once anyway so I would prefer the manual Master/Slave selection over that fancy Cable Select thigny

Any computer newer then 3-4 years old can handle Cable Select just fine. If your is older....or freaky like mine (where I have to have one as CS and the other as Slave or it won't boot!!) then you may have problems. But for the most part...CS is the way to go.

 

[DaEezT]

Nah, my PC is just a year old but like i said: I only tried it once and that was... years ago!
Whatever, I am happy with manual Master/Slaver and thats the end of the story.

(The audience cheers)