Faster HDD makes FS run faster?

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

Will a 7200rpm drive make FS run faster than a 5400rpm HDD? Would it be too difficult to transfer FS to the new drive? See profile for system specs. Thanks

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Stratus,>Will a 7200rpm drive make FS run faster than a 5400rpm HDD? Would it be too difficult to transfer FS to the new drive? See profile for system specs.I'm assuming you are changing drives from an existing single drive system and you have a current stable FS2002 installation.First, to answer the first part of the question the answer would have to be no. However, you will notice a decrease in loading times so in that sense FS will 'seem' to be performing better with fewer pauses, if any, during a flight.Once you have set up your NEW drive with the o/s I would do a fresh complete install of FS to establish the registry settings and THEN copy the FS2002 folder across from your old drive to the new installation and allow all the overwrites.I did this not so long ago and was pleasantly surprised to find that virtually everything in my pre-existing highly configured setup was still working. A few 3rd party addons needed to be reinstalled but that should present no problem as you can merely overwrite all the files from the previous installs. Backup any configuration files first in order that they can be used to update their basic installations.**************************************************************SWITCH OFF YOUR COMPUTER AND SWITCH OFF AT THE WALL SOCKET but leave the computer power lead connected. Make sure you take appropriate antistatic precautions by grounding yourself by touching the metal case or power supply unit with both hands BEFORE doing any of the following: **************************************************************To achieve the above you should temporarily unhook, say, the DVD drive or CDR/RW from an END connector on the appropriate SECONDARY IDE cable and connect that IDE connector to your old HD. This will save you having to change your old drive from master to slave. Make sure the coloured line (usually red) that runs along one edge of the cable lines up with pin "1" on your HD. Find a spare power supply connector or again simply remove temporarily the connector from either the selected DVD or CDR/RW drive and plug that into your old drive.Power up your computer and with luck your BIOS will auto detect the old drive and you will be able to see it in Windows. Carry out the copy and then reverse all of the above to restore your system back to normal.N.B. If you are at all unsure about carrying out any of the above then DON'T. Find someone who can!And finally, my apologies if all this is old hat but it is often difficult to judge a particular individual's level of expertise from his or her post.Mike

[alastairmonk 0]

With a faster HD you may see a modest improvement, but I doubt there will be anything startling.If you plan to replace your HD, rather than add one as a second drive, do yourself a favour and get a copy of Powerquest's Drive Copy !This will transfer everything on your old drive onto your new one bit for bit, and will even keep any existing partitions in the same proportion. Thus if you have a 10Gb drive with 4Gb and 6Gb partitions and transfer to a 40Gb drive it will create partitions of 16Gb and 24Gb in size.Full details here:http://www.powerquest.com/drivecopy/

[Cruachan 705]

>If you plan to replace your HD, rather than add one as a second drive, do yourself a favour and get a copy of Powerquest's Drive Copy !Yep, I'd agree with that. If upgrading your HD is all you wish to do then 'Drive Copy' or 'Drive Image' is definitely the way to go. These programs are very user friendly and totally accurate and safe.However, this is not necessarily true if you are also wishing to update your operating system or MainBoard. All sorts of problems can arise as I discovered :( In the end I simply cut my losses, installed everything afresh on my new drive and drive imaged my old drive contents onto a second new hard drive which is also installed permanently in my new system. That way I have been able to leisurely pick away at the existing sofware installations and miscellaneous data backups and transfer as I go.Mike

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

Thanks for all the tips. This will be a slave drive btw.

[Guest WorkingStiff]

Why not make the newer, faster, and hopefully more reliable, drive the master and the old drive the slave?All you need to do is reset a jumper on each drive.

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

You would format and install the OS on the new drive then, right? I do have data on it, so I'd prefer to make it the slave instead of formatting it. I lost my CDRW and DVD drives btw, no idea why.

[Guest WorkingStiff]

You don't have to do either if you don't want to. Your computer will automatically detect the drive on which the operating system is located.1. I went through this process recently and here's what I did.Installed the new drive and switched around the jumpers to make the new drive the master and my old drive the slave (I now use it for backup and storage only)2. Partitioned the new drive to set up a number of logical drives; C through F.3. Installed new operating system - Windows XP Professional.4. Reinstalled my software.5. Windows XP automatically assigns drive letters so that the old drive automatically became Drive G; my CD drive became Drive H, etc.Now if you don't want to go to all this trouble, then you can use a drive image program to copy your entire drive intact to the new drive but based on my own experiences I'd rather not.

[Guest GiZBUG]

To be honest, you are not going to see much if any differences.The speed will come when transfering data from one HD to another.I would get a 7200 with ATA 133 capabilities. With the cheap prices on hd's these days, you can't go wrong.check out http://www.tomshardware.com under the storage section, they have more info on the speeds>Will a 7200rpm drive make FS run faster than a 5400rpm HDD? >Would it be too difficult to transfer FS to the new drive? >See profile for system specs. >>Thanks

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

Well how can I partition a drive? My CDRW and DVD drive don't show up at all in the BIOS now. :-(

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

Well, maybe I should take the plunge: Format my drives after backing up data. I'll format both, with the 7200rpm as the main drive and 5400rpm as secondary. But after the format, will my DVD/CDRW drives appear again? Another question, just how do you format a drive? Sorry if it sounds stupid. ;-)

[Guest WorkingStiff]

Formatting the drives wouldn't make them primary (master) and secondary (slave). The only way to change them is to adjust the jumper settings; which means you need to unplug both drives and changes the jumpers at the back.You can partition your drive by running FDISK from a Win98 boot disk.I have my master drive partitioned as follows:C:Operating System (Win XP)D:ProgramsE:Downloads and Temporary StorageF:FlightSimI never install any programs into C: drive despite that is usually the default shown at installation. That way, if my operating system fails that is all I need to reinstall. My secondary hard disk is not partioned and is assigned the letter G; I use the entire drive to store back up software and FlightSim downloads.Formatting can be done either by running the FORMAT command from a Win98 boot disk or as part of the process for installing Windows XP.I don't know why your system isn't recognizing your removable drives. What operating system are you using?

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

Thanks for clarifying. So I need to install the OS on both drives regardless of master/slave? Using WinXP Home.TIA

[Guest WorkingStiff]

No, you only need to install your operating system on one drive. But you can install it on both drives if you want to. Then at startup you'll get a menu asking which operating system you want to run. This is the same principle as a multi-boot system although in this case you're only using one operating system.After installing your operating system go Start/Control Panel/Performance and Maintenance/Administrative Tools then click on the Computer Management shortcut.Then click on the Disk Management option and you can change the letters assigned to each drive, or try to diagnose why your OS is not recognizing your removable drives. Did you remember to plug them back in?

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

Hmm, the drives just can't be found, they're all plugged in. I'll reformat, maybe that'll clear it up.Thanks