New Hard Drive.

S

slake

Silver Level Poster
Okay so I've bought a new hard drive to act as my primary hard drive.

I've copied games and pictures over to an external harddrive that I bought... But now what?

Do I need to uninstall Windows 7 from my current primary Hard Drive? If so... how do I go about that?

Also I'm guessing it's just a simple plug in and play type deal when putting in the new hard drive right?

I'll be running two hard drives, hopefully my PSU can take it...

Primary Hard Drive: WD Velociraptor 500GB
Seconardy Hard Drive: WD Caviar Green 640GB

The rest of my specs are:
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T @ 2.8GHz
3GB Radeon 7950
PSU: Corsair TX 650W.

I should be okay for power right? Or should I upgrade to a 850W while they're cheap?
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
You wont need to upgrade your PSU for the sake of one harddrive, they typically take very small amounts of power (especially the Caviar Greens). With respect to getting your new primary drive up and running, I'm not sure if you can/need to uninstall windows from your previous one but if you insert your new one and boot from the windows installation CD you should be able to install win 7 on the new hard drive with no problems.
 
S

slake

Silver Level Poster
The reason for me asking about the PSU is that every so often my computer restarts itself, if I accidently tap it with my leg...

Is this a PSU problem?
 
tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
you will be fine for power, so don't worry about tht.

a few things

- make sure the new drive ( the raptor?) is plugged into a sata 6gpb port on the motherboard.
- you will need to reinstall the OS onto the new drive.
- copy all your important files/docs/movies/pics/music onto external.
- unfortunately, you cant copy game installs to from a hard drive to another, it doesn't really work like that. you will have to reinstall all your games on your new OS.
- then follow the instructions that are in the welcome booklet to reinstall the OS. It would be best to format your old drive too. You can do this during setup.

In the welcome booklet are instructions to reinstall windows.
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
slake said:
The reason for me asking about the PSU is that every so often my computer restarts itself, if I accidently tap it with my leg...

Is this a PSU problem?
Click to expand...

The randomly shutting down thing could be a few things, you definitely not accidentally pressing the reset button (I know, sounds daft, but I've heard it happen).
Could be a short somewhere, check there are no loose cables coming from the PSU touching the sides of the case etc.
If it keeps happening might be worth giving PCS a call to diagnose it properly.
 
S

slake

Silver Level Poster
So even if I copy my steam files over to the external, I'll still need to download them all again?

Also I guess the sata 6gb port will be plugged into my Caviar Green right?

----
@steaky360 - Nope, it's not the reset button as I have a CM Storm Sniper Case, and the reset button is on the top and hard to push in anyway :p
I've talked to them before about this, and they just sent me a new PSU :/
 
tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
you could, backup all the steam installs to the external drive, you can do this in steam library, just right click on a game. Then you can install them from the backups.

The cav green probably doesnt need a sata 6 port, 3 would be fine for a cav green. But SSD or raptor defo in a sata 6 port.
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
slake said:
So even if I copy my steam files over to the external, I'll still need to download them all again?
Click to expand...
Probably yes, I'm not sure if this will help but there is a way to install them on seperate drive's now through steam. There is also a good sticky (Thanks LFFPicard) https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?4566-How-To-Split-a-Steam-Install-(Vista-Win7) on how to do the same thing, might be able to do something about it using that?

slake said:
Also I guess the sata 6gb port will be plugged into my Caviar Green right?
Click to expand...
It's less important to have the 6Gb port plugged into the Caviar Green as its a slower drive.

slake said:
@steaky360 - Nope, it's not the reset button as I have a CM Storm Sniper Case, and the reset button is on the top and hard to push in anyway :p
I've talked to them before about this, and they just sent me a new PSU :/
Click to expand...
Might be worth getting back in touch as the original problem is still occurring!
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
tom_gr7 said:
you could, backup all the steam installs to the external drive, you can do this in steam library, just right click on a game. Then you can install them from the backups.
Click to expand...

I knew there was a way now :) I've just not actually seen the "backup" option myself haha!
 
S

slake

Silver Level Poster
Hmm, I have no idea what the 6GB SATA port will look like...

Should it be labelled?

I've found it on the motherboard, but there are no cables coming from the slots...

There's one cable next to the first SATA 6 port, do I just take that one out *which the Caviar was running from* and place it in the SATA 6 port and then it's all done?
 
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steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
What mobo do you have?

EDIT: Ah right, well you need to connect a SATA 6 cable between it and the new harddrive :)

slake said:
There's one cable next to the first SATA 6 port, do I just take that one out *which the Caviar was running from* and place it in the SATA 6 port and then it's all done?
Click to expand...

Probably not, it probably won't be a SATA 6 cable - sata6gb.jpg

You might need to purchase one (not sure if one comes with the harddrive?)
 
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S

SlickShoes

Well-known member
About steam games, you can copy the games from your steamapps/common folder and store them else where, then when you want to move them to a new drive, install steam, copy the files back in to the common folder and then click to install the game in steam, it will then find the files rather than downloading them.
 
S

slake

Silver Level Poster
I think the slots are all SATA 6GB/s...

I have a ASUS M4A87TD.

There's also one black cable that was connected to the Caviar Green, that is wide but thin. Do I just connect that one to the new Hard Drive or is there a specific cable for the new Raptor?

The cable has multiple connectors going along the cable so I guess the others are used if you have more then one HDD?
 
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steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
slake said:
I think the slots are all SATA 6GB/s...

I have a ASUS M4A87TD.

There's also one black cable that was connected to the Caviar Green, that is wide but thin. Do I just connect that one to the new Hard Drive or is there a specific cable for the new Raptor?

The cable has multiple connectors going along the cable so I guess the others are used if you have more then one HDD?
Click to expand...
You are right, all your Sata ports are 6Gb/s.

Yes that's correct you can connect two hard drives to one cable, you should have received 1xSata 6Gb cable and 2xSata 3Gb cables (in your welcome pack if they are not being used), just ensure the cable you are going to plug into the Raptor is a Sata 6Gb cable (it might have a stamp on it somewhere saying it is a Sata 6Gb cable) otherwise see if it looks similar to the picture I posted earlier.
 
S

slake

Silver Level Poster
Yeah I had one Sata 6gb cable in my welcome pack, that clearly states it's 6gb... Guess it's time to boot up and install... with my fingers crossed.

Should I boot the PC up without the Caviar in first, install Windows 7 on the Raptor... wait til that's done and I've moved my selected files over..

Then turn off the PC, insert and plug up the old Caviar and boot?
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
I'd probably do it with everything in all at once, you can format the Caviar that way (always recommended if you don't need to store stuff on it for the transfer).
 
S

slake

Silver Level Poster
Wouldn't Windows just boot from my Caviar though, without asking me if I wanted to install Windows on the Raptor?
 
S

slake

Silver Level Poster
Okay so everythings done, I only put in the Raptor to install windows on, just now put in the old HDD and Windows is booting from the old HDD rather then the Raptor... how can I change it so it boots from the Raptor instead of the Caviar?

---- EDIT

I'm in the BIOS trying to set my Raptor as the priority device, but it's not listed.

I've only got:
Removable Dev.
SATA 3m-wdc wd6400
CD ROM
Disabled
 
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