Building first computer (HD questions mainly)

[qacwac]

I've read some tutorials on building a system and think I know where everything goes so those aren't my questions.

The situation is that I just got a 2.4 Celeron, ASRock MB, case and power supply. These are already installed. I'm taking the DVD Rom, CD-RW, RAM, Video card, modem, firewire card and 2 HD's from my old Athlon 700. The computer will primarily be for digital video editing but nothing major.

My questions are:

One HD is a Quantum Fireball Plus KX 27.3 GB 7200 rpm (ATA66 I think) Right now this has all the system files and personal files on it. 7 gigs of this are lost due to a previous attempt at using linux. I partioned it and then never installed Linux and don't know how to get it back. The other HD is a 75 gig Wesern Digital 7200 rpm (ata 100 I think) Right now this has some captured video and downloaded climbing and sports videos

Questions:
1. Can I get the 7 gigs back by reformatting? (think I tried this before and it didn't work)

2. Should I use the 27 gig drive at all since it's ata66? Will that make the other drive run at ata66? I can just leave it with my older computer and give it to my brother and get another HD soon.

3. Does this sound good? If I use both HD's have the system files on a partion of the 27, personal & school files on a partion of the 27 and the 75 gig totally devoted to video. Or is there a better setup? On my current setup I can't capture directly from my video camera to the 75 gig because it says it can't maintain the needed rate. I can capture directly to the 27 gig though. Only thing I can think of is that the 75 gig is set as the slave and must be running at ata66. I didn't think being slave would slow it down like this though. Any thoughts welcome. If this is the case then I won't use the 27 and just have the 75 for now.

4. Do I need to reformat both or either drives before I move them to the new computer? Or can I do it then or do I need to do it at all. Especially the 75 gig. If I don't have to reformat it I don't want to.

5. Once I do hook everything up, anything I need to do before I turn it on. What will happen when I do turn it on? Do I just put the Win CD in and go from there?

6. Any pointers or warning you want to give are welcome.

Thanks.

 

[ethebubbeth]

Ok, i'll give this a shot. Somebody correct me if i'm wrong.

1. Yes, you can. If you don't mind losing all the data on the drive, delete both partitions and create a new one that is the size of the drive. Or, if you want to keep your data you can delete the linux partition and then use a utility like partition magic to resize your windows partition to span the whole drive. If you tell me what version of windows you are running i can walk you through it if you need it. Or, you could just delete the linux partition and create a 7 gig windows partition in it's place. That would be the easiest solution.

2. You can go ahead and use the quantum drive no problem. IDE devices on the same controller can operate at different speeds, so your WD drive will work at ata100 and your quantum will work at ata66.

3. How do you have your swap file setup? You might want to try moving it to the other drive and see if it solves your capture problems. You should be able to use your proposed setup. Also, how are the drives setup in your comp? Do you have both hard drives on one channel and the dvd and cdrw on the other channel? That is probably the optimal setup.

4. If your 75 gig just holds data, you do not need to reformat it. I'd reccomend moving all your data off of the 27gb drive onto the 75 and reformat the 27 for a fresh install of your OS. However, you might be able to get by with using the same install of windows. If you don't reformat, make sure to set up a new hardware profile before you put the drive in your new comp... motherboard changes can be pretty difficult on windows, especially if you are using 9x.

5. Make sure to double check your jumpers, and, if your cables aren't keyed, that you have pin1 of your ide cable on the correct side of the drive. It's amazing how easy it is to overlook something like that.

Well, i've rambled on for quite a bit and prolly have way too many typos. I hope i've been helpful to ya. Let me know if you need any clarification on anything.

 

[qacwac]

Thanks.

I'm running XP upgraded from 98SE.

What's the swap file and how do I set it up?

 

[brianp34]

What's the swap file and how do I set it up?

The swap file is the area of your hard drive that your computer uses for virtual memory when it runs out of ram. Having this on a seperate partition or on a seperate drive will usually make your system run more efficiently.

In windows xp, right click on my computer, properties, advanced tab, performance, settings, advanced tab, virtual memory, click change, select the partition where you want the page file to reside and set it to some static size, then reboot.

 

[qacwac]

Thanks. How big for an 80 gig?

Also by static do you mean with the same min and max size?

 

[brianp34]

The size of your swap file is determined by the amount of system ram. I think its generally recommended to run 1.5x the amount of system ram (a 768 meg swap file for a system with 512 megs of ram for example.) And yes, by static I mean both the min and max size the same.