First thing - before you do anything, make SURE your not in the middle of a project!!

Never know what could go wrong on install - PLUS even if everything goes well connection wise, windows has a way of reassigning drive letters between partitions on 2 different drives - so if you got a ton of media in an existing project linked to your existing D: drive, after installing a new HDD (fixed HDD that is) Windows 98 is going to call your first partition on your new second drive, drive D:
(which will hose up your project links plus bump up your optical drive letters causing any problems with any programs which run of CD-rom..etc.. messy messy)

The exact way windows (98 that is, haven't used XP yet) continues to view partitions & assigns letters is kinda of funky but easy to understand - can't remember the exact order off the top of my head - sure some1 will be able to post more on this faster than i can find a webpage with a good explanation.

1 BEST DRIVE: - well.. of course that comes down to opinion.
Also, you have the option of 2 different types - Internal - External

EXTERNAL-

These are usually a snap to install, and you can reassign drive letters
easily. You have an interface choice between USB and Firewire (ieee).
I say firewire performs better than USB 2.0
(also, NOTE, you need to have USB -> 2.0 <- drive! AND USB 2.0 interface port!. You can use a USB 2.0 drive even if you have USB "1.0" interface in your computer, but transfer rate STINKS beyond words)
SO.. if you don't have USB 2.0 on motherboard or card, you will need to pick one up (40-80 bucks)

The good thing about owning a USB drive is compatibility. Most computers around, or being built, almost 100% have USB support. I love being able to lug around my Maxtor 120 gig USB 2.0 drive as a little brief case that i can transfer files between others computers (which usually don;'t have ieee support)

THING is,,, you can't (or at least i can't, even though i have never tried)
capture to External drive nor run uncompressed video off of it. I use my drive for
backing up vid files.

INTERNAL: (this is best option if u want to capture & play off drive - but u do get drive letter problems - I've never come across a solution for this, but really haven't looked hard)

I say currently Western Digital 1200JB reigns supreme.
However - don't think you need the "best" most expensive. Just so long as its at least 7,200 rpms. I have never experienced any problems with video transfer with 7200 (2meg catch) drives. Plus, not ripping on your machine or anything, judging by the size of your HDD, thinking your computer is at least a year or so old - so probably doesn't have state of the art interfaces or components, so why pay top $$ if you can't get 100% of the performance the drive offers? (if money isn't a problem, then sure, get the best)

2 - Pretty sure you computer has dual IDE interfaces (primary and secondary) for up to four IDE devices (2 IDE channels, each channel can support 2 devices (master and slave). Your HDD must be hooked up to your PRIMARY IDE interface and the MASTER channel. So if you added a drive, you would need to set it to SLAVE on your PRIMARY CHANNEL.. or you could set it MASTER on your SECONDARY channel. Boot drive is always MASTER on PRIMARY channel..

this might get long explaining since i don't know your exact configuration.
Probably best if you let me know more about your system.

1. How many IDE devices do you have (eg HDD, Optical drives, Zip drives,,etc)?
From there, then we can consider best way to optimize performance (eg how to organize your drive between channels, and master/slave settings)

(PS forum- if i've stated something which is incorrect, feel free to correct me)

I haven't cracked open my Sony Vaio case yet, so some of the questions about my configuration are hard for me to answer. But here goes with what I can tell you:
--Win ME
--CD-DVD drive
--CD-RW drive
--1 floppy drive
--External Firewire port (but I need it when doing DV, so I'd have to add a card--I think--to get another connection for an external hard drive)
--two USB ports on the CPU, 4 on the monitor

System is a little over a year old. No other drives.

I don't know if my computer has dual IDE interfaces. If this tells you anything, the online FAQs for it include instructions for adding a hard drive, and advise that there is internal room for one and to connect it as a slave to the current HD. I was assuming that I would go with an internal drive, as long as there is room and because I don't need the portability of an external. But I'm willing to revisit any and all of my assumptions. I'm not a serious DV editor like so many of you folks on this forum. Just do stuff for my and my family's entertainment.

Oh, and as to getting the 8MB buffer over the 2MB, it's only $14 more, which seemed affordable. So if its better, I'd be inclined to go for it. But if the 8MB chances a higher failure rate or anything, I could easily forego it. Any thoughts out there on that issue?

I appreciate HeeHee's and tadpole's help, and any other that you folks have to offer. I'm amazed at the knowledge on this forum.

Primary Master - OS drive
Secondary Master - Video Drive
Secondary Slave - CD-Rom

Works for me anyway. I also stick in a video drive to Primary Slave on occaision when I am working on two projects or one long one.

Depending on what Bios you have, some tweaking may be needed there as well.

I just added a separate 7200 rpm 60 GB drive for all my video editing using a PCI Ultra ATA 100 controller card. Basically, the controller card plugs into an empty PCI slot inside the computer and the new hard drive is attached to that as a master drive. (I left my system bootable drive by itself on IDE 1 and my CD-ROM on IDE 2 on the motherboard, each with it's own cable.) Install for this new drive took me fifteen minutes, using Maxtors excellent instructions and Max Blast II software. Just something for you to consider.

Dan

In win98 drive letters are assigned as follows: primary IDE active partition gets C:
secondary IDE active partition if you have one gets D: logical drives on C: are next and logical drives on d: follow.

One way around all of this is to make the new drive one big extended partition with logical drives partitioned as needed. This way you have c: followed by it's logical drives D, E, etc and the logical drives on the new drive would be assigned F, G until all partitions have have been assigned drive letters. CD drive letters would follow. In some cases may be able to change drive letters in device manager.

I can't say about winme but in win2000 and XP you can change drive letters to what you want them to be.


Steve

Steve, your post raises a question I haven't asked, but should. Assuming that I add the second drive, either as a slave on the primary IDE or using a separate controller card, how many partitions should I have? Should I (must I) have any? If it can be all one big drive, or several partitioned ones, what are the advantages/disadvantages of the two setups?

Like everything else, there are pros and cons. Adding partitions creates extra complexity: Just where did I put that file? But multiple partitions means you can back up portions of your new drive separately using utilities like DriveImage if you want. You can also use those multiple partitions to organize your data.

Also, you can sometimes build a drive with less "slack" (wasted) space if you choose a partition size that is just less than the point where Windows will need to switch to larger cluster sizes. This is not much of an issue with video files, however.

Finally, multiple partitions means you can use DriveImage to do a quick backup from one partition to another. This can be very useful if you need to quickly restore your OS after some experimentation has trashed it. Since I tend to do this often, this makes it very easy to restore my system to its former state. Of course, it won't protect you if your drive fails.

I strongly recommend a product called "Partition Magic." It lets you create and resize partitions without affecting the data within them.

tadpole,

<<<You have an interface choice between USB and Firewire (ieee). I say firewire performs better than USB 2.0>>>

Theoretically, USB 2.0 should be faster than Firewire since USB 2.0 runs at 480mbps(megabits per second) and firewire runs and 400mbps. I have not done comparisons on this, so I am curious as to how you came up with this determination.