Adding a Second Hard drive

[LeoAllan]

I was thinking of adding a second hard drive to my computer exclusivly for FS2002 as there are so many good add-ons and they take up a lot of disk space.

I've heard that if a second hard drive is added to a computer it can disable your main hard drive making most programs including windows useless.
Is this true?

Also what is the price of a 20Gig hard drive (in U.K pounds please).

Thanks

Leo Allan

[mmm6262]

Good day. I have never heard of anything like that. I know you can use a program like Ghost or Partition Magic to setup a new hard drive and to tell the computer which one will be the master or C drive. It shouldn't be a problem that I know of. The price depends a lot on the size (20gig, 80gig etc..) and the speed of the drive. Hope someone else has more information about all of that for you. Goodluck!

Gabriel Molina
N93002

[ajmitch]

Hi Leo

Don't know where you heard that one.
Are you talking about just putting another disk in to hold your flight sim or do you intend installing Windows on this disk too and having a dual boot option.

If you just want the extra space without installing a second OS and having dual boot, then it's a simple as opening the case, setting the jumpers on the two drives, assuming that they will be primary master and primary slave. (the CDROM drive usually sits on secondary master)
Once the jumpers are set and both drives connected up correctly, then it's into the BIOS to change the setting for primary slave from 'None' to 'Auto'. Then just save and exit from the BIOS setup reboot and away you go. Windows will see the new drive and want to format it. Let it do that. Then just install your flight sim, but change the path from C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT GAMES\FS2002 to D:\FS2002 or whatever you want to make the path, where D: is the letter of your new drive.

If you want a dual boot option, it's a bit different. If you are using Windows XP, then there is no problem and it will let you do more or less what you like, but if you have Windows 98, then you will need something like Partition Magic to enable you to boot to the second drive (as opposed to doing it through the BIOS - messy method). The reason for this is that Windows 98 wants to boot from the first partition on the first physical hard disk. Programs such as Partition Magic create a special boot sector that allows you to 'multi boot'
Once you have that set up, then again, it's just a matter of installing the sim, but this time, probably in it's default location.

A 40Gb hard disk will cost you less than a hundred pounds now, so I would imagine a 20Gb one will cost considerably less if you can find one.

Hope this is of some help to you.

Tony

[ukflight]

LAST EDITED ON Jun-07-02 AT 04:14PM (EDT)[p]Well for a start I reckon you should be looking for a HD bigger than 20GB and you should IMHO go for 7200rpm rather than 5400rpm. You can research prices for the UK at www.dabs.com - their latest monthly catalogue has 40MB 5400rpm Seagate @ £63 + VAT and delivery and a 40MB Barracuda ATA IV 7200rpm @ £75 + VAT and delivery. If you can, order from them online over the Internet. Carriage charges for UK internet online orders are shown in their catalogue as FREE if over £75 + VAT and £2.95 if below. Ring, email or fax and they start at £10 and go up to £20. (BTW I do not work for them - in fact my last two drives I bought from the local one man computer store where I always get excellent service both for sales and repairs/alterations).

As for the first part of your question I have never heard of that happening. If you follow the instructions and set the jumpers correctly it will work, hopefully without any problem. I have two fixed hard drives and a cradle for removable drives and have only once ever had a problem and that was a HD crash which was caused by a faulty drive.

Good luck

Bill

[LeoAllan]

Thanks Tony.

That has helped a lot.

Leo

[theMK]

LAST EDITED ON Jun-07-02 AT 04:52PM (EDT)[p]Do you know what Jumpers are LeoAllan?

Buy a 7200rpm HDD, 20GB is enough for two-three FSs (but 20GB isn`t very much today - so 30GB would be better) - Maxtor is one of the best! - also Seagate and WesternDigital (but Maxtor is better ;D) - the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) also should support ATA100! - and also look at your cables - they must support ATA100 too! - and rounded cables are good! - don`t forget to answer the Jumper question! ;D

PS: I`ve never heard such a problem (that the other HDD(`s) don`t work after installing a new)!

PPS: Now I`ll install some new black rounded ATA100 cables (`cause I`ve "also" still slow not rounded cables) - I`ll post if it works (and I think that it`ll work :))


greetz from Austria

Luke

[Wichita]

>I was thinking of adding a
>second hard drive to my
>computer exclusivly for FS2002 as
>there are so many good
>add-ons and they take up
>a lot of disk space.
>
>
>I've heard that if a second
>hard drive is added to
>a computer it can disable
>your main hard drive making
>most programs including windows useless.
>
>Is this true?

>Leo Allan

Nah,you do have to set the jumpers on the HD's to MASTER and SLAVE. Its easy to do,you'll most likely want your old drive to be the MASTER and the new one as the SLAVE.

Like most others have posted get a larger drive--and go with the 7200 rpm. A 40 gig might be nearly the same price or cheaper than a 20.

David

[alanreed]

I have a new pc coming with a 40GB HD installed. I'd like to install my old HD as primary slave but I want to leave everything on it NO FORMAT! I intend to leave FS2002 on the slave (D:?) and copy stuff from d: to my C:. I don't want to be able to boot from D:. I will eventually uninstall Windows 98SE and my browsers from D:.

So I understand I have to change my jumpers to primary slave. Do I need to do anything to BIOS?

Alan

[jkeye]

Adding the second drive certainly makes life easier in the long run.I recently added a 60 GB seagate 5200rpm drive.Make the new drive the master (it's less likely to have errors on it) and do a fresh install of the OS(preferably Windows XP!)

Here's how:Disconnect the old drive and replace it with the new one.Configure the BIOS to boot from either your floppy or CD(depending on the OS) and install the OS.Then reattach the old drive as slave.
Some tips:
Choose XP over ME for the fresh installif you have a choiceXP far more stable!-and choose NTFS partitioning.(Faster,allows password control.)
Keep ALL your original CD's including ISP and access number!
Backup ALL vital data first!
Give yourself 6 Hours to do this!
Make sure you can access the internet if you need to search for support!!!

jk

[ajmitch]

Alan, you will have to reinstall FS2002 on your new drive if you don't want to boot from the slave drive.
The reason is that when you install FS it puts settings into the Windows registry and of course the registry on your old disk will not be accessed by the new OS on your new hard disk so FS will not run.
Once you have installed the basic package on your new C: drive, you should be able to copy over all your add on aircraft and scenery etc.

Make sure that the jumpers on the new drive are set as master, then set the jumpers on your old drive to slave.
Connect both drives to the same cable (Primary), it doesn't matter which one goes on which connector, the jumpers take care of identifying master or slave.

In the BIOS, all you will need to do is go to the disk drive section. Go to primary slave and change the setting from 'None' to 'Auto', then exit the BIOS and choose to save the settings.
Your PC will reboot after you exit the BIOS, and away you go.

Tony

[sonic33]

''
and choose NTFS partitioning.(Faster,allows password control.)
''

Nooooo. Not recommended, if you dont understand how the NTFS file system works... BTW Fat 32 also has password control...

I think what you were trying to say is NTFS has file security in the form of access permissions, whareas Fat 32 has share level security only... Both are or can be , password protected.

Regards
Geoff
http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3d00ec331f353f94.jpg

[ukflight]

Nice sig Geoff - my Yorkshire blood had me rooting for England (I always support England as long as they aren't playing Scotland) - got quite emotional when the match finished. For those in the UK the Daily Telegraph has a superb article in the sports section on the England defence.

Sorry it's off topic (except that the DT also has about 5 pages of air fares on a Saturday as well :-))

Bill

[sonic33]

(I always support England as long as they aren't playing Scotland) :-lol

Hilarious :-lol :-lol :-lol

Nice one Bill


Regards
Geoff
http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3d00ec331f353f94.jpg

[alanreed]

I think you're saying that I can't have FS2002 on the 2nd (primary slave) drive as I intended It has to be on the drive that I boot from.

And thanks for the info.

Alan

[ukflight]

> I think you're saying
>that I can't have FS2002
>on the 2nd (primary slave)
>drive as I intended
>It has to be on
>the drive that I boot
>from.
>
>And thanks for the info.
>
>Alan


No I don't think means that. Mine is on the slave drive with no problems whatsoever. It is just that it will be easier to install various addons that are geared up for the default installation. However where an exec installer file is used a lot of these seem to be using the check facility which looks for the fs2002.exe file.

Hope this helps

Bill

[ajmitch]

The reason that I said it wouldn't run from his 'slave' drive, was because his slave drive is his old hard disk going into a new PC as a slave. The new PC will have the new OS on it's C: drive, but this 'slave' drive, because it has the OS on from another PC and the sim installed under that, the sim has it's registry settings in that Windows installation, not in the one that the PC boots from. It would therefore, not be able to start up as the new OS on the C: drive would not have the registry settings.

Tony

[theMK]

@ Tony, no - he just had to go into the Windows Explorer, go to FS2002 and press with the right mouse button on FS2002 and click on "Send to Desktop" - that`s it!!!