I am currently using a raptor sata hdd as a primary and a second ide for storage. i have all the pins taken out of both drives as i didnt think i needed them as they are both different types. my pc is working fine now (i have installed vista x64 from xp x64 onto my main hard disk so the boot files are on slave but windows is on primary) but could having an IDE Hdd as well as a sata cause any long term damage? as ive experienced quite a lot of hdd problems before using both of these at the same time, or could dual booting with the boot files on one hdd, and windows on another make it more secure from the boot files going corrupt?
Pins? I think you’re confusing the pins with jumper blocks. SATA drives are all Master drives to start with. Anymore, many IDE drives have a jumperless setting that can be used if it’s the only drive on the chain. There’s no danger to using both drive types. If that were the case, there’d be a number of people in trouble because it would extend to other IDE devices, like CD- or DVD-ROM or RW drives.
Dual booting can become a little bit of an issue. For best results, you want to install the older version first, then the newer one, and on a separate partition or hard drive. What you can do is have the OS run chkdsk on it’s main partition or hard drive to check for errors. You can run this from the command line with a ‘chkdsk /r’ (no quotes) or you can go into My Computer, right-click on the drive and go to Properties. Following that, you can head over to the the Tools tab. The first section will have two options: one to check the drive and one to attempt to repair errors on the drive. Check them both. If this is the boot drive of the OS, Windows will tell you it can’t do it under Windows itself, but can be scheduled at the next boot.
yes sorry i meant jumpers and called them pins lol yea i took them out as i am running sata as primary anyway. i had windows xp x64 installed on the ide drive (secondary)and ran the vista x64 installation from xp x64, chose to install it on the primary (sata) hard drive, and it did so it asks me to boot from windows xp or vista, changed the timer to 0 on the boot select screen as vista is default, and both the boot files are on the IDE drive with windows vista installed on the sata one, what i meant was would i have less chance of the boot files for windows vista getting a virus or going bad (im not sure how), as they are stored on the second hard drive? This is only because i have had a lot of trouble with booting on my sata drive, ive fixed the mbr etc. just about everything i could do to fix it but still no work lol every time i install any version of windows on my sata hard drive doing a clean install, at some point it stops booting and the way im using it as now (dual boot) seems fine maybe i just need to get a new sata hard drive:P
Vista is still based on the NT 5.x code, so a virus on one partition would likely affect the other.
As drives encompass a mechanical portion in the drive itself, they are subject to mechanical failure. I’d use your manufacturer’s drive diagnostic tools to check the drive to see if it’s failing.
ok thanks, i have had hard drive problems in the past with my raptor, but it seems wierd as these are meant to be good quality, long lasting drives. I will try the diagnostic tool again as i used to have it but didnt really try it out. Thanks for your help:)
By an off chance, you wouldn’t happen to have both power connections on the drive plugged in would you? If you do, disconnect one (with the power off).
sorry what do you mean? I have the power connection plugged into the sata, and into the IDE from the power supply. One little question, does it matter if the sata runs at 10000rpm and the IDE runs at 7200rpm? as i am running them together:P
*oh and btw i couldn’t find a diagnostic tool that runs on vista ultimate x64:(
Some of Western Digital’s drives have both the SATA power connector and the older 4-pin Molex, like what you see on your CD-ROM drive. Plugging them both in can cause a problem.
Most diagnostic tools can be run by booting off the disc that comes with retail boxed drives, circumventing any OS problems.
The spindle speed won’t be an issue either. The only time it would be an issue is if you’d run them in a RAID array, in which case, the 7200RPM drive would pose a speed hit for the array being slower. It wouldn’t cause problems with data.
ok just making sure lol i didnt know i could boot from a diagnostic tool disk, i will have to make one as i cant find it lol thanks for all your help:D
edit- just using standard single power connector, and no raid, il set up raid when i get another raptor:)