C: Drive to D: Drive swap?

[The Dog Star]

My C: drive is an UDMA33, 17 gigs that came with my compy.

A while ago I got a 22 Gig IBM deskstar, which is UDMA66, and is faster than my C:, even though my motherboard has a UDMA33 interface.

Anyway, I used to use the D: for backing up onto, and as general storage, gradually moving swapfile, internet files and outlook express data over to D:

I decided recently, that I might as well use my newer drive for the system disc( C: )


How do I do this?

Is it simply a case of copying all the files from C: to D: ?
Then shutdown, and change the jumpers to reverse slave and master positions on the IDE channel?
Will the computer automatically, just detect the primary slot as bootable and make it C: ?

To copy the files, should I just drag and drop everything from the root of C: to the root of D: ?

Or should I use DOS to copy the files?

:dog:

[[HLnC]Jay-Dee]

if u just try and copy the files it will fail cos of some files being in use

its best to use a program like norton ghost or drivecopy

alternatively consider a reinstall... ;)

[Uranium]

Re install if the best and safest way really. :)

[The Dog Star]

Originally posted by [HLnC]Jay-Dee
if u just try and copy the files it will fail cos of some files being in useHow about if I boot to a DOS prompt instead of Winblows?
Or would copying using DOS truncate all the long filenames?

I really don't wanna re-install all my sh*t :cry:

I've got my suck ass TIME :( computer working pretty well at the moment (ie stable and rarely crashing).

:dog:

[[HLnC]Jay-Dee]

have a little look around....
and i'm sure you will find some drive cloning software ;)

:)

[rat770]

Norton ghost can do what you want.

[DrDoom]

Rat is correct.

Ghost or Powerquest will do the job. Boot from floppy and copy the partition. Fdisk to change active partition to d:

A copy from Dos or explorer will fail.

You have taken the most important step by placing your swap file on the fasters drive. The your most accessed file should be on there as well, and temp directory.

Personaly I might not bother. You might not see much benifit. I had a slow IDE C drive and a SCSI D:. I stuck games, swap file etc on d:. It loaded stuff up in no time.

You proposed change will probably only see a slight increase in booting and not much difference otherwise. Its the access times whilst your playing games etc that matters.
I'd be interested to know the outcome if you do it.

What is the bench mark difference between the disks.

[X Cell]

Cloners are ok but they do limit your control. Plus it will be difficult to get a disk clon to swap one set partition for another?

I do not have time to go into detail but can use xcopy to copy all data from one drive to another (saving long file names)

U need to boot into Windows without virtual memory enabled. open a dos prompt and then use this sort of command.

xcopy c:\*.* d:\ /s /c /h /k

Of cource this will do a straight copy of all data from c: to d: but u can modify to suit your needs.

[ybw]

You might wanna change that to :

xcopy c:\*.* d:\ /e /c /h /k

I replaced the "/s" with "/e"

As /e allows for the copying of all dirs and sub-dirs, including empty ones. It might not be relevant, but better to be safe..

Andy

[X Cell]

Sorry yeah /e instead of /s, I always get those two missed up :)

[Uranium]

:eek:

[The Dog Star]

I forgot about this thread :homer:

The prospect of changing drives round seemed so daunting, that I put off doing it and forgot about it for a while :)
I got round to doing it about 10 days ago.
Originally posted by DrDoom
You proposed change will probably only see a slight increase in booting and not much difference otherwise. Its the access times whilst your playing games etc that matters.
I'd be interested to know the outcome if you do it.You are right DrDoom.

Before the swap....
From pressing return at the boot options screen, it would take about 90 to 110 seconds before the systray icons appeared and the hard drive activity settled down.
The point at which my computer has successfully booted up without crashing :E

Now....
From pressing return, it takes 29/30 seconds before I see the plain green background, then a further 30 seconds for the systray icons to appear and disk activity to cease.

I've no idea how much of the difference is to do with having a faster boot drive, or having a clean re-install.

Probably the next biggest difference I see is with scanreg.
I can let it check the registry and then back up, in a fraction of the time it used to take.

Most likely because I haven't installed and then uninstalled a load of sh** I never use :laugh:

I can't say I notice any improvement in game performance, other than I think, the map load times in CS are a little quicker.

In the end, I squeezed anything I wanted to keep from my D: to C:
Formatted the D: from DOS. Shut down, set the jumpers up the right way. Then reinstalled everything.

I wonder now, if formatting and using the xcopy commands above might of been easier...

Then again, that would of transferred over all the junk, and leftover bits that can slow a system down, I suppose.

:dog:

[Edited by The Dog Star on 21-02-2001 at 06:04 AM]

[rat770]

Hi

I guess the reason for changing the drives round is to benefit from the ata 66 speed. The only thing to remember is that if they share the same channel the the ata 33 will limit the ata 66 to ata 33 anyway.

Ok you can use the secondary channel but I guess youve got the CDROM or DVD on that one which will also limit the speed of the HD. But that might be the best way to go, have the ata 66 as the primary master, the ata 33 with the CDROM/DVD, and just use the ata 33 for backups and apps where the hd performance is less critical.

Cheers,

Rat.