Information needed please, from someone who has successfully done the following themselves or positively knows how to do it. I have an old workstation desktop which is about to compute its last. It runs on 95B with a 1gig drive with Word and Excel and files, no games, no networking, no internet. I have acquired an ‘as is’ replacement which has the standard drive, floppy, CD and, is loaded with Windows ME. Not much use to me as I don’t have the disk so I could never restore any damaged files. Now what I want to do is put the old drive in the ‘new’ machine along side it’s own drive. Move all the files over to the new drive then reformat the old one with 98B. That done I will move the files back and reformat the new drive in 98B = bliss. Both drives happen to be Maxtor. In the new machine the widest ribbon (with a red edge) has two plugs, one fitted to the CD and one to the drive. I have unplugged the CD and plugged into the old drive (there was a spare duplicate power plug). I can run the machine up OK by connecting only to either drive but it will not run if both drives are connected? Do I need a separate ribbon for each drive going to a separate motherboard socket? Do I run-up on one drive then connect up the second ‘live’? (There is a thinner ribbon with lots of plugs and goes to the 3½ floppy – haven’t tried to use this ribbon?) Part two: As both drives have been used in respective machines, both are deemed ‘C’ drives. Is this a problem? How do I rename one of these drives to say ‘E’? Appreciate the help. No.9
Short on time, but I can give you a couple pointers... Do you mean that you have already tried with both drives connected, or is that a question? One issue could be the plug for the CD drive. I'm not entirely sure, but that plug may not be configured to accept a storage drive... If not, you'll just need to find another one of those "ribbons" that connect the drives- find one that is just a male connector at each end. The you can daisy-chain the two drives- plug on drive into the other, then plug the main drive into the machine's plug. Also- both of your hard drives are probably at the moment configured as "master" drives. What you need is to configure the old drive as a "slave"- there should be a small plug/pin arrangement on the rear of the drive somewhere- some pins that you plug a cap on to configure the status of the drive. (This may not sound like it makes sense, but you should be able to find what I mean just looking at the back of the drive) There should be some little key that shows you how to arrange the plastic "cap" on the pins to configure the drive. One problem you may run into though- do you have the original install disks for 98? You may well run into major problems if you just drag-and-drop copy the OS onto the new machine. When you install an operating system on a PC, it creates a system registry for windows, configuring windows to the machine it's being installed on. Just "drag-and=drop" copying the operating system could cause registry problems... Sorry this sounds kind of disjointed- without actaully seeing you machine to work on, it's kind of tricky... Hope that stuff helps tho! And, anyone (competent) at a computer store could clarify the things I've attempted to! good luck!
Thank you D – you hit the key which was changing the physical jump connections on the drives rather than try and change the assigned drive letters – which are chosen by the computer. I searched out a shop which specialise in storage and they confirmed I had to do this to make one drive the slave. Finding what pin link to change was another matter, but after doing a web search with just the model number of the dive and the term ‘jumpers’, I found a whole tech manual For this drive I just had to pull the jumper off and it became a slave. The new drive and CD were on the same ribbon, so I unplugged the CD and connected the new drive, same with the power plug. To reconnect the CD I used the ribbon from the old machine into a spare socket on the MB. Re 98B, I have the disk so this will be a clean load. I’ve been looking at the ME version and there’s a lot about it I don’t like. I thought 98B was a good move up from 95B. To me, ME looks quite ‘juvenile’ and too ‘web’ and I like graphics etc small, however………. Many thanks again for your help No.9
Good stuff... glad it worked out! You know, I've heard plenty of people who don't like ME (windows ME, that is ). But personally, I actually think it's pretty darn good! I've been running it on my machine for about 2 years+ now, and I actually have far less stability problems than many people I talk to running 2000. 'Course, I have basically rebuilt and tweaked most of my machine though... So I could be biased! (Hee hee... spend less than $1000, and my machine easily holds it's own with many $2500 gaming machines!) [ 24. January 2003, 12:49 AM: Message edited by: CrazyD ]
I asked two friends who had the same 'problem' they basically said the same thing Crazy said, but they were also talking about adding a 'jumper'... And that the main HD should be Master, and the secondary should be Slave...but I guess that is what Crazy said anyway....
Martin – You sound just like Oddball, ”I just drive ‘em, I don’t know what makes ‘em go?” D – I’m sure ME is an improved OS to 98B, logically it should be? However, Gates went on about 95 and 98 so much, and then, there were so many moans they had to come out with ‘B’ versions with ‘fixes’. So when is the ME’B’ coming out? So far with limited use, my impressions of ME are regarding the changes to the front end and the relocation of pre-set clickable commands. Considering Microsoft has just about endless resources, (they can’t deny they don’t have the money), why don’t they ask users in various countries with various objectives what they want from an OS? They could certainly include these versions on the disc so the user could choose Two examples, one as I mentioned before, they want to serve you large graphics by default an want to stem things from ‘My computer’ and ‘My files’. So where’s ‘My Pony’ and come to that ‘My Arse’? When you open Explorer, sorry ‘My f/kin computer’, (cute isn’t it?), everything now defaults from ‘My f/kin files’. ‘My files’ to me is an unimportant nothing section as I have load my Directories, sorry, my files in a large hierarchy just as one uses filing cabinets in an office. However, Gates has decided I ‘must’ work his way – which I also happen to think is crap logic – but then I would wouldn’t I? Two is the example of the improvements to Excel. This is obviously not a favourite of gamers or novices. It’s an excellent spreadsheet programme, IMHO, for those working with calculations. Here they wisely don’t f/about with the front end but increase the functions of the programme – which IMHO is the way to do things unless there are glaring faults which attract considerable protest. Regarding their ‘Help’ section, how many times have you typed in ‘f/off you stupid b/stard’ or words to that effect Stevin – Thank you for making inquiries, very good of you to trouble Re the jumpers, I believe I have now established their use and configuration is dependant to the drive in question and how it has been designed to work. In the case of my old Maxtor, there is only one jump function. Bridge the two end pins of each row of 6 at the end furthest from the ribbon plug (default) and it acts as a Master. Pull this bridging connector off and the drive acts as a Slave. Now, I also have a modem card (make unknown but the box says J-Jet and the chips are Rockwell) which has 4 bridging connectors among its 12 pins. Of course no instructions came with it so I haven’t a clue how to configure it except that it claims it is Plug’n’Play and of course my computer says it’s not, and Windows can’t detect it, and it produces a conflict I/O error however I configure the software and/or the Bios Conclusion, it’s these f/kin jumpers again which I don’t know how to configure (I’m just going to pull the lot off and see if Windows is smart enough to sort it out – or – I’ll put it back in the box and truthfully sell it as ‘unused’) No.9[/I]
