HDD - Internal or External?

[pixel]

I currently have my HDD's set up as follows:

60GB Seagate (Partitoned to: 20GB C Drive for OS, 40GB D Drive for storage),
80GB IBM for capture.

Due to continuously reinstalling windows, I back up my storage from my partitoned drive to DVD-RW, then format the full drive and reinstall windows.

I am fed up with backing up all the time, so have obtained a 20G HDD and an IDE removeable caddy.

My plan is to make the 20GB my OS drive. I will then have my 60GB as a dedicated storage drive and my 80GB kept as a dedicated capture drive, I will keep the 60GB and 80GB in the removeable caddies and swap them over when I want to capture.

What I want to know is, does anyone have any dropped frame/sync issues with using caddies, or do you suggest buying a USB2.0/Firewire external case to keep my storage drive in (although they are slower)?

Also, is it OK to have the boot (OS) drive set as a slave?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

[pbhalerao]

As far as I know, you cannot boot from an slave drive. If you look at the booting options from your CMOS, the options are:

a) Floppy Disk
b) Primary Hard Disk
c) CD-ROM

You can change this order.

CMOS setup tell the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) when to load the Operating System. When Windows boots up, it loads all the drivers that let you use the peripheral ports (parallel port, serial port(s), USB, FireWire, etc.). However the OS can boot from the C:\ only in case of HDD and single OS (not dual boot OS).

I suggest that you add a third disk to your system; something large such as 120GB+. This you could dedicate for capture, your IBM for converted/rendered/encoded files and the first for OS+Utilities.

Regards,

[pixel]

Thanks for the quick reply, but I must have confused you.

I was not actually wanting to know about booting from a USB drive.

I was wanting to know if I can boot from my OS (internal) drive if it is set as a slave, as this is the only way I can set it up if I use the caddy rack.

I was trying not to go down the road of buying another drive, and trying to have seperate drives just for ease of use.

The thing is that I already have the caddy because I got it for free from someone I know, but I don't know if it's worth swapping the drives in a caddy, or just buying a seperate USB2.0 enclosure (about £40) to have all my drives connected all the time, although my storage drive will be slower due to the USB2.0 interface.

[pbhalerao]

Correction.

I did not read the mail completely. I see that you have already purchased a 20GB HDD. Make this as a primary boot drive (C and install your OS and rest of the software here.

I think it should be alright to use the IDE caddy. I can't really say but since the bus is still the same, it should be alright.

However I still think your best option is three IDE disks inside the box. For much less than the price of an external HDD, you should be able to get a big internal disk plus the additional IDE controller card that will be required.

[pixel]

Thanks again for your speedy reply.

The only problem with having three internal drives is that it is not possible for me. I have used all my PCI slots.

I didn't actually pay for the 20GB either, I got that from someone I know as well, so I can give it back if I don't need it.

I just don't really want to go spending £££ when I have everything that I need just now.

My idea was that because I rarely use my capture drive (about twice a week), I can leave a 60GB in the caddy most of the time, then just swap it with my 80GB to capture on, encode to my OS drive because I never usually have more than 4GB installed, then burn to CD/DVD.

[The village idiot]

As long as your computer will boot with that 20G drive set to slave, you shouldn't have any problems booting to it. I know XP and 2000 can be installed to drives that are not the bootable drive. They will put the bootloader on whichever drive is set to boot. Then the loader will direct to the OS. Try it and see. Shouldn't harm anything.

With you capture drive in a caddy, you might get some dropped frames. Not all caddies will allow full speed, even though they claim a full ATA100 or 133. Only way to find out is to try it. Nothing should be damaged by what you are trying to do.

[Solarjetman]

I guess I do not see what the problem is here. Why do you not have the 20GB (OS drive) on the primary channel, then connect the caddy to the secondary channel and swap between the 60GB and 80GB drive? This is how I had my computer setup for about a year.

That way you are booting from the primary drive, and you have the ability to swap between your storage drives. You will never want to remove your OS drive anyway (unless you want multiple installations of OSes)

As for being able to boot from a slave drive, its a little of a misnomer. You must have a boot sector on the primary drive that points to the slave partition. In other words, Windows can be installed on the slave drive, but you cannot remove the primary drive or the computer will not boot.

EDIT: I have another approach that you may like. This is what I normally do ever 3-4 weeks. I use Norton Ghost to make a copy of my C: partition right after installing windows. Every few weeks I just use Ghost to return it to how it was right after installation. No formatting required, and yopu don't have to worry about other partitions on the same drive. Plus, it takes only around 20 minutes instead of the few hours required to install windows and all the programs.

[pixel]

Thanks for your help

I have tried it and have found that I do need to have the primary drive left in to make the slave bootable as solarjetman stated, which means I am going to have to get a longer IDE cable so I can set the 20GB to master.
Luckily I kept XP on the 60GB before ghosting it to the 20GB (as solarjetman also stated) so I can boot from that for now.

I'm happy with the set up so far, I have yet to capture though.

It means I can have a seperate drive with all my storage instead of a partition like I had before (which crashed, but luckily I could retrieve the information), and leave that connected most of the time at a good speed.

(I didn't want to go down to USB2.0 speed because I will mostly be transferring files between hard drives and that will really slow it down).

And when I capture (rarely) I can just put in the 80GB, and encode to the 20GB.

Thanks again to everyone for their help, it is greatly appreciated.