Gridlock Mikey

Hiya chaps, its time for my monthly display of techno retardedness (sp?)
I've got a 10gb hard drive and recently got meself some of that there broad band action
Signed up for Kazaa and started down loading to my hearts content. Sofar so good (Never had such a collection of **** )
Now my beef is this, about once every two days I have to transfer my downloaded files to CD-R, which is fine, but a pain in the ****. Am I right in saying that I could go buy another hard drive (Bigger) and run it at the same time as my existing drive? (The one with xp etc on it)
I know i'd still periodically have to transfer the files but once a month sounds better than 3 x a week.

Cheers

Mikey

Hanslow

In short, yes

You also wouldn't need to transfer files if you changed your download folder to one on the new big drive.

[Edited by Hanslow - 7/29/2003 1:22:44 PM]

ChrisB

Mikey,

WTF did you do with your post?!

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

Yes, but .... how old is your PC ... will it be able to see a new large drive. You could also buy a dvd-r as well. More files

Hanslow, When you did the last bit of works for mikey, how old is his kit ?

Dave.

Hanslow

Dave, not too old. Should take a new big drive no problem. Even if it has to be partitioned into smaller bits.

SJ_Skyline

Mike,

You may want to get a bigger screen too - all that w**king and your eyesight will go!

Rich

Gridlock Mikey

Yeah, you just talk about my stuff as if i wernt even here

Chris, what do you mean?

So in short, can I go and buy a hard drive off the shelf?
Do i need to do anything else with it or is it just a case of plugging it in and booting it up? (As if!!)
Is it a case of biggest is best?

Cheers for the input sofar dudes


Mikey

Gridlock Mikey

Can't get a bigger screen, the neighbours will be able to see Also ***** on a 17" monitor are quite scary enough thank you

Hanslow

Biggest is not necessarily best. Heard about quite a few failures on some of the big drives. Mind you, I would imagine about 80GB should be enough **** even for you

Just need to make sure that the jumper is set to slave on the drive if you are slaving it off the existing IDE cable to the drive already in your machine.

If you are putting it on a separate IDE channel then you can leave it as a secondary master.

You've got my number if you get stuck

Buy one online as well, DO NOT get one from PC world! Try www.komplett.co.uk, www.ebuyer.com or www.dabs.com.

Oh you'll need to format the drive as well but you should be able to do that from within windoze. Also, you might want to partition it, but that depends on a) whether you want to, and b) whether your BIOS will allow drives of whatever size you buy as a single partition.

[Edited by Hanslow - 7/29/2003 2:54:42 PM]

Gridlock Mikey

or c) As if you'd ever be able to!!

Get real dude, this is Mikey you're talking to

Mikey

Hanslow

Well I thought I would throw it in in case you wanted to partition it. You should (hopefully) be able to just bung it in and format it full size.

JR55

What about getting a USB 250Mb Zip drive and just have it hanging off the back so when you have a particularly "entertaining" film/photo collection you just put it straight to it? It's a bit easier than installing a new Disc.

Gridlock Mikey

What's that all about A good idea or not?

Also, can i just clarify, my PC isn't FULL of ****, probably got as much as the next man
I have got shed loads of Audio stuff aswell as funny vids on there aswell.

Anyone would think i was some kind of perv

Mikey <Honest!>

JR55

Sorry Mikey, I didn't mean to imply anything untoward was going on! A zip drive is a storage drive that is quicker than burning a CD a bit like a big floppy disk.

Hanslow

Mike, I think you will be better with a new hard disk (personally) as you can get a 80GB drive for around 80 quid, i.e. a quid a GB, and the 250MB zip disks are 30 odd quid for 4, i.e. 30 quid a GB.

Zip disks and Jazz disks are better if you want more portability, but I'm guessing you just want storage?

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

id recommend a bigger hard disk and a faster cd writer,i just bought another samsung 120 gig drive for £75. how can you have windows xp pro and download on a 10 gig drive that must fill in minutes

Richard Work

Not wanting to hijack, but along similar lines.... My old PC (Win 95 piece of cr@p) has a load of files I want to transfer to my new PC is there anything that I can hook up to it to transfer to - can I use a wire, plug in a CD writer???

I have an archos multimedia jukebox (20Gig harddrive) but its USB and I can't use USB with the win 95 Pc......

Any help?

Cheers

Richard

Hanslow

Rich,

You could use a serial (Null Modem) cable and transfer that way although it will be slow.

I take it you don't have any network cards so you could transfer that way?

Easiest way would be take the hard disk out your old PC, temporarily slave it to the one in your newer PC, boot up, transfer what you want, shut down, remove old disk.

You should be able to install a CD Writer in your old PC, windows will see it as a normal CD rom and then you install the CD burning software onto your old PC and you should then be able to burn whatever files you want to CD.


[Edited by Hanslow - 7/29/2003 5:59:01 PM]

Richard Work

I like the idea of the serial cable, I'm not too bothered about the time it takes - I'll let it run all week if need be... I'm more concerned about disrupting the machine, I'm sure the hard drive is about to die (computer doesn't switch off, many h/disk errors/bad sectors etc.)

I do have a network card in the Win 95 machine for my cable modem, would I just use an ethernet cable to link them - what would I need to do next?

Thanks for your help,

Richard

Hanslow

If you have a network card in the 95 machine, and can get hold of a network card for the other machine, you just need a crossover cable and you will be able to get the two machines to talk.

Once you have the two machines physically connected with a cable, it's a case of setting up a mini network so that the machines can see each other and enabling file and print sharing so that you can copy the files over.

Best thing to do is do a search on google for information on how to set up a network with a serial cable or crossover cable. Failing that, see if there is anyone local that could give you a hand


[Edited by Hanslow - 7/30/2003 9:30:28 AM]

Gridlock Mikey

Hanslow, is there nothing you don't effin know about



Mikey

Hanslow

Yep...making decisions

Gridlock Mikey

To add a bit of spice to proceedings, this task has come to light:

We have changed out computer system at work and as such my old pc has got a shed load of scooby related material on the hard drive that I want to keep. The folder concerned has got 271 files totalling 476Mb. I want to get this information onto CD-R but the work computer does not have burn facilities, my one at home however does.

I am going to take the work hard drive home, plug it into my home pc and transfer the data that way.

My concern is this. The hard drive from work has Windows 98 going on and my home pc is running xp.

Should be a piece of pi55..............right?

Mikey

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

Mikey,

Or drop it off at my house and I will do it for ya

Dave.

Hanslow

Yep, as long as it is not set as the master on the primary IDE channel (which it won't cos that is what your existing drive is) then it will just be treated as a data drive and Windows will boot as normal allowing you to grab all the ****...errr...scooby stuff off it

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

How big is the work's drive ... would it do as the answer to your storage space issue ?

Dave.

Gridlock Mikey

Thanks Dave but I feel the need to crack this one myself

So Steve, therefor by plugging it in, the PC will just recognise it as a seperate drive? Like when I plug my Camera in it sees a removeable storage device?

Piece of cake this PC lark.
What's IDE all about then?

Mikey

Hanslow

Yep, except you need to make sure your PC is off when you plug it in. IDE is the bus used to transfer data from the hard disk. Basically it's the big wide cable that connects to your hard disk.

What you can do temporarily is open your case, disconnect your CD Writer, plug the cables from the back of that into the hard disk 'borrowed' from work, and then boot up. Depending on whether your CD Writer was on a separate cable, or joined to your original hard disks depends on the jumper setting on the works hard disk.

If the cable was connected to your hard disk, you will want to set the jumper to slave on the works drive. If it was a separate cable with no other devices on it, you will want to set it to master on the works drive.

It should (hopefully) be auto detected in your BIOS and then your OS should pick it up straight away.