Installing Second Hard Drive

edatwilm wrote on 10/5/2002, 4:44 PM
Hey all you computer jocks, help a novice know what to do re installing a second drive. My Video Factory is not recording to tape very well which may be due to residing on the same drive as Windows. Anyway I am proceeding to install a dedicated drive for video. I seem to remember reading about a couple things re the installation that could be important to getting a good operation of the disk.
1. I think I read somewhere that to not limit it's speed, the second drive should be connected to the second IDE port on the motherboard. Is this correct?
Currently my CD-RW drive is connected there. Can the CD-RW drive be connected to the first IDE port along with primary hard drive, with the CD-RW drive in the slave position?
2. How about formatting the second drive? Is FAT32 OK or should I use NTFS formatting.That would mean installing Windows 2000. If so, can I have my current Windows ME for everything on drive 1 and Win 2000 for drive 2?
What else do I need to know about?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

Comments

IanG wrote on 10/5/2002, 6:07 PM
That drive configuration would work fine - it does for me! NTFS is a better format, though I'm not sure it merits installing a 2nd OS unless you're going to run into filesize problems. But then, if you've got 2000, why keep ME? If you do want them both you can install 2000 as a dual boot, though I'd keep both OSs on drive 1.

Cheers

Ian G.
miketree wrote on 10/7/2002, 3:44 AM
As speed is often an issue here's something to consider.

FAT16 is faster than NTFS, presumably because it doesn't have to mess about with all the security & stuff. However you are limited by the partition size.
I don't know how FAT32 speed compares, but you aren't limited (realisically) by disk size. Anybody else know?
edatwilm wrote on 10/7/2002, 1:29 PM
Ian,
Does it matter whether the CD drive is slave to the first or second drive?
IanG wrote on 10/7/2002, 2:18 PM
Both will work, but if you're going to burn VCDs you'd be better off with the CDR slaved from the drive that *doesn't* hold the mpegs. Then again, you may find the cable runs force your hand. It doesn't make a huge difference, but copying from a drive on one controller to a drive on the other should be a bit quicker.


Cheers

Ian G.