On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:42:10 GMT, "Phluge"
<phluge1@yafarthoo.com> wrote:
>I'm considering adding a second HDD in my hp desktop. I have two questions:
>
>What is a good website to explore my options in terms of compatibility and
>appropriate sizes (looking for a site kind of like Crucial has for RAM). Is
>it good to try and keep the two HDDs compatible as to brand, etc?
No, brand shouldn't matter (this is why we have
standardization like SATA or PATA/ATA100/133), etc.
Determine which interface your system has available for
adding the drive, typically PATA on an aging system or SATA
on a newer system (if not both).
Next decide the budget and inclination towards it being a
value oriented upgrade or performance oriented. Obviously
we'd all like both but you might have to choose one moreso
than the other depending on budget. Next explore available
capacity obtainable with this criteria in mind.
Another way to look at it is, focus on why you're adding a
second drive. Next check the local store advertisements and
your favorite online sellers for a good price on something
compatible (typically SATA vs PATA as mentioned above).
If the system is very old, there might be a capacity support
limitation in that it only supports drives up to 128GB.
There might be a bios update from HP that overcomes this or
there are some other alternatives if this situation is
present, but if the system shipped with Windows XP
originally instead of it being upgraded to XP, odds are good
it does not have this capacity support limitation. However,
if the version of XP is pre- Service Pack 1, you need to
update XP by installing Service Pack 1 prior to installing a
new > 128GB drive.
>
>Also, I have OEM XP Home installed, plus I have the 7-disk XP installation
>disks because hp recalled my 40G Toshiba and replaced it with a free 80G
>Samsung. If I install a second HDD would it be legal to install it there too
>and keep it on both? Or what would you suggest would be the best
>arrangement?
Yes, you are licensed to run one copy of the OS on that
system. If you install the OS image onto a second drive you
are still only making use of one license on the system it is
licensed to run on. What you would be limited from doing is
then taking one of the two drives and using it to run
windows on another system (unless you had secured another
license for same OS version, valid on the other system).
What the best arrangement is depends on your specific goal.
Since you have the discs already, I would think the primary
goal in pre-installing another copy would only be to quickly
recover from a hard drive crash by being able to swap in the
other drive without having to wait through the semi-long
process of putting a factory image back onto a drive from 7
CDs.
Otherwise, if you we instead looking to duplicate your
existing windows installation in it's present state instead
of the original OEM clean install (often plus undesirable
OEM bloat state), you can duplicate the contents of the old
drive to new drive using one of several softwares capable of
it. Potential candidates include Ghost, Driveimage,
Drivecopy, one of the (one or two) respective hard drive
manufacturer's utility discs (the best alternative to try
first since this software is free), or another software.
questions re: 2nd hdd 
Linear Mode
