Okay so I've looked around at other retail stores and suppliers and Samsung HDDs are impossible to find in the Toronto area. So my choices are Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor (Getting More Rare).
1. I'm looking for a Quiet 400GB because my current Seagate 400GB is kind of loud, makes a sort of buzzing noise. So anyone have any model numbers?
2. Now my other question is, has anyone here ever used Norton Ghost to copy their HDDs to another? Because I want to swap HDDs and turn my current Seagate into an external. I just don't know how Norton Ghost works or if there are any other alternatives please suggest something.
3. If I decided to get a laptop HDD instead, are SATA Laptop HDDs the same as 3.5" HDD SATA connectors?
[Advice] Need A New HDD - Suggest Please
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Hi there chocolinux,
The quietest drive I've ever had was a Seagate 7200.7 120 Gb (PATA), but that might not be what you're looking for. I found the Samsung P80 (SATA) much louder - bought it after reading the recommendations here. Just goes to show.... Of course, I'm in France, so the HDDs might have different components in Europe and in North America. I've just ordered a Seagate 7200.10 320 Gb (SATA), I'll let you know how it sounds if you like.
As for GHOST, I'm no expert but I've cloned system drives with this software a couple of times without any particular difficulty. The thing with boot drives is that you have to clone the entire drive (all the partitions) over to the new one; if your source drive is partitioned, you can't just clone over the partition with your OS on it or it won't boot correctly. There must be workarounds for this, but I'm no expert, as I said. The other thing when you clone one drive to another is that any partitions will be resized proportionally. For example, if the source drive is 100Gb with two 50Gb partitions, and the destination drive is 200Gb, the resulting partitions will be 100Gb each (twice their size as on the original drive). This is the default setting and apparently can be changed, but you'll have to look into this or get advice from another.
One problem I had was when I cloned my system drive from a PATA drive to a SATA drive. The cloning went fine, but when I booted I had a 45-60 second delay between the POST screen and the Windows splash screen - every time I booted. Annoying, but I eventually reinstalled directly on the SATA drive and everything is fine now. Apparently Windows was treating the SATA drive as external storage, Lord knows why.
There are freeware disc cloning programs out there. I've used one in the past but I can't remember the name just now, I'll see if I can find it. Look here for some ideas:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm? ... 418&page=2
No idea about SATA laptop HDDs, sorry.
Hope some of this helps.
PS, say hi to TO, my home town.
The quietest drive I've ever had was a Seagate 7200.7 120 Gb (PATA), but that might not be what you're looking for. I found the Samsung P80 (SATA) much louder - bought it after reading the recommendations here. Just goes to show.... Of course, I'm in France, so the HDDs might have different components in Europe and in North America. I've just ordered a Seagate 7200.10 320 Gb (SATA), I'll let you know how it sounds if you like.
As for GHOST, I'm no expert but I've cloned system drives with this software a couple of times without any particular difficulty. The thing with boot drives is that you have to clone the entire drive (all the partitions) over to the new one; if your source drive is partitioned, you can't just clone over the partition with your OS on it or it won't boot correctly. There must be workarounds for this, but I'm no expert, as I said. The other thing when you clone one drive to another is that any partitions will be resized proportionally. For example, if the source drive is 100Gb with two 50Gb partitions, and the destination drive is 200Gb, the resulting partitions will be 100Gb each (twice their size as on the original drive). This is the default setting and apparently can be changed, but you'll have to look into this or get advice from another.
One problem I had was when I cloned my system drive from a PATA drive to a SATA drive. The cloning went fine, but when I booted I had a 45-60 second delay between the POST screen and the Windows splash screen - every time I booted. Annoying, but I eventually reinstalled directly on the SATA drive and everything is fine now. Apparently Windows was treating the SATA drive as external storage, Lord knows why.
There are freeware disc cloning programs out there. I've used one in the past but I can't remember the name just now, I'll see if I can find it. Look here for some ideas:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm? ... 418&page=2
No idea about SATA laptop HDDs, sorry.
Hope some of this helps.
PS, say hi to TO, my home town.
Re: [Advice] Need A New HDD - Suggest Please
yep. plug and play!Chocolinx wrote: 3. If I decided to get a laptop HDD instead, are SATA Laptop HDDs the same as 3.5" HDD SATA connectors?
kent.
thanks a bunch man! The program is sooo small too! I haven't had a chance yet to use this though lol. But I was wondering, is it possible to just copy the windows and account data and program files over to a smaller HDD? I'm actually looking into either getting a SSD or a Laptop Drive now. (32GB SSD or a 40GB SATA Laptop Drive)kovvoy wrote:Chocolinx,
I found that software I mentioned yesterday: DriveImageXML. Google it, you'll find it no problem.
Good luck.
thanks a bunch man! The program is sooo small too! I haven't had a chance yet to use this though lol. But I was wondering, is it possible to just copy the windows and account data and program files over to a smaller HDD? I'm actually looking into either getting a Laptop Drive now. (40GB SATA Laptop Drive)kovvoy wrote:Chocolinx,
I found that software I mentioned yesterday: DriveImageXML. Google it, you'll find it no problem.
Good luck.
I'd much prefer a 32GB SSD drive but they so bloody expensive. $1799!!!
If you mean simply selecting the windows and account data and program files in Explorer, then Control-C, Control-V onto another drive, of course you can do it, but the second drive won't boot. You need the boot sector of the drive as well. I won't say anymore, because I really don't know the nitty-gritty of it, but that just doesn't work. Copying the "Programs" folder from one Windows installation to another doesn't work either because none of the programs will have registry keys enabling Windows to run them. A lot of programs can run without any installation (go to http://www.tinyapps.org for a vast selection of software that can fit on a floppy and, in most cases, requires no installation), but that's exceptional.kovvoy wrote:But I was wondering, is it possible to just copy the windows and account data and program files over to a smaller HDD?
Copying over an image of the drive or reinstalling is the only way to go.
Personally, I prefer reinstalling, and having done it half a billion times I'm used to it. The trick is to take notes on the major steps each time. That makes it easier the next time. But that's just me ... Black Viper used to have a whole section on how to tweak a fresh Windows installation for security and performance, but his site has been down for a year now. Maybe someone else has posted his info since then? Or try the Internet Archive, they've archived tons of stuff. Or google "Black Viper".
Another interesting link if you want to personalise a Windows installation is http://www.nliteos.com. Very interesting.
If you've got 1800 bucks to throw into a hard drive
, you can afford to pay someone else to worry about this for you! lol! I'd prefer a $100 dollar drive and go on a killer vacation for the $1699 left over!