What a Good Computer Needs

[Inertia]

...any idea how to install 2 3.5" floppy burners in one computer and get them both to work? Then you would be able to copy from floppy to floppy....

Just attach two 3.5" floppy drives to the same cable. The floppy cable normally has more than one connector. Then there is an A: and a B: floppy drive.

This configuration (or 3.5" and 5.25" floppies) and copying from floppy to floppy was common in the olden (DOS) days. That's why the hard drives starts at C:.

[Dartman]

You should be able to just tell the bios that you have 2 3.5 drives. My first computer was like that if I remember right. My second I added a 51/4 to have better compatibilty, it had a 2868bit processor and a huge 52 meg drive.
You have to remember which one is a and b and makes sure the a Boot drive is the drive with the twist in the cable.
And yes we did that to do on the fly floppy copies and because many games and things came on multiple disks so you could have the second ready when it was called for. I got my first cd rom about 91 or 2 I think and it was a single speed read with a caddie. It was so slow it couldn't even play music disks fast enough. I paid over a hundred or maybe a bunch more and it was a demo unit

[BillyG]

I still use my floppy for backing up small things like spreadsheets and documents (for my father's business) and Jpgs for mailing digital photos to relatives. Still the cheapest and quickest way to transfer little things.

I thought the 100mb Zip drive would eventully take over from the floppy but after CD-R's became super-cheap I thought "no way".

And I agree Raid motherboards rule - Abit KD7-Raid user here (just upgraded from a KT7-RAID board).

[Empty17]

Well, my hard drive conked out last week. I'll be getting a new one tomorrow, and then I'll install everything again.

I am going to put:

IDE Channel 1: CD-RW Master
IDE Channel 2: DVD Master CD Slave
IDE Channel 3: Hard Drive with Operating System and everything else. I'll have to format drive and reinstall everything since it's a new drive.

Should I clear the CMOS first, getting differing reports on that one.
Also, will there be any problem with the Operating System on IDE Channel 3 Hard Drive? Should I put the Hard Drive on IDE1 and the CD-RW on 3? Does it matter?

Sound like a plan? *loll* Anything I need to know, please tell me before tomorrow afternoon. Thanks!

[cfitz]

Sounds like a plan. I would leave it as you have originally listed (and also as Inertia advised you - trust in Inertia! ). Don't put the optical drives on the RAID controller (IDE channels 3 and 4) as you were wondering about in the latter part of your post.

By the way, what was the hard drive that failed, and how old was it? Is the hard drive bay getting sufficient ventilation?

cfitz

[CDRecorder]

Your plan sounds good, Empty17.

I wouldn't clear the CMOS unless something goes wrong. I didn't need to when I installed a controller card, and I didn't need to when I replaced a hard drive a week or two ago.

There shouldn't be any problem installing your OS while it's on IDE channel 3. If you're using Win98/Me, the installer should work like it did before. If you're using XP (and I think this applies to 2K as well), you'll need to have the drivers for the IDE card on a floppy so you can provide them during the installation.

Also, what type of HDD are you getting? FYI, I have had bad experiences with WD drives and good experiences with Maxtor drives. Although many others have reported good success with WD, I believe that Maxtor is better.

[Empty17]

The Drive was a Western Digital 80gb w/8 mb cache. It was only a few months old. I bought it in late December or early January, but I did not install it until March. I do not Overclock. The drive is in a Kingwin case in the bottom hard drive rack with 2 80mm front intake fans right in front of it. It was pretty noisy and I think it ran hot from the beginning. It just gave out.
I ordered a 40gb WD w/8mb Cache thinking it would be quieter. Find out this morning there was a problem with the order, and now I won't be receiving it. I probably won't be able to replace the drive until next week.

[Empty17]

Oh, and I have XP Pro. Can I format the drive on IDE 1 first, and then switch it to 3?

[cfitz]

Hmmm... there do seem to be a lot of anecdotal reports of WD drive failures.

Oh, and I have XP Pro. Can I format the drive on IDE 1 first, and then switch it to 3?

Why do you wish to do this? Unless there is something prohibiting you from doing so, it is best to leave it in the final position throughout the whole process.

cfitz

[Empty17]

Yah, the WD's don't seem to be doing as well as they should be. I am reading a lot about returned drives, hot drives, overly noisy drives, etc...
Some people said different batches seem to be bad. I don't know, I was just unlucky. I wish I could buy things at stores close to home, but I can't find products I want close by. Ordering online is becoming a pain, especially when it does not work out.

I am on a friends computer now, and he does not have a floppy drive. That's why I asked. How come you can't format from IDE 3 the same you can from IDE 1? I formatted my hard drive with XP Pro on IDE 1 with no problems.

[CDRecorder]

It's interesting that you mention noisy WD drives, Empty17. My 1.5-year-old WD was making a loud whine and vibrating so hard that my desk shook before I replaced it. It was also getting unreliable, and the disk diagnostic programs would constantly find "problems" with it. BTW, that WD replaced another WD that failed after 2 weeks. ]

What do you mean when you say that you can't format the same way when the hard drive's on IDE3 as when it's on IDE1? Using a Win98 boot disk, I could use FDISK and FORMAT on my 60-GB hard drive (on IDE3 in this computer) exactly the same way as a hard drive hooked directly to the motherboard. If you are referring to the driver thing I mentioned earlier, this is only needed when you actually run the Windows installer, and it isn't even needed then if you're running Win9x/Me. If you're using XP (I assume it's similar for 2000), it will give you an opportunity to provide the IDE driver included with your IDE card when you begin the installation program.

I hope that information helps!

[Empty17]

From a post above I got the impression I could not do it. When I formatted my drive I didn't need fdisk or a floppy. I did it straight from the XP PRO CD. It was extremely easy to do it that way. You can even do partitions that way, though I prefer no partitions.

[Action Jackson]

Wow, this must be the longest threads based on one of the oldest technologies! LOL!

FDISK? That takes so long. Much faster to use Maxblast [for Maxtor's] or DataLifeGuard Tools [WD] to format/partition harddrives.

I don't know how these would perform for NTFS or other configs.