Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
At The Back => The Dressing Room => Topic started by: Will on August 05, 2007, 12:35:45 PM
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well my computer has a blue screen and apparently i have to reinstall the OS again, but that means losing a lot of stuff, loooaaads of songs. i now have a spare HD, can i use that as the primary, and then put the old one as the slave without losing data?
i don't know much ocmputer techy cr@p, but they are both SATA anyway
Thanks!!!!!!!
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Yep you can do that :)
I'd suggest taking the 'broken' one out and install the new OS onto the new drive whilst there's only the one in there- it'll make things easier and you can be sure nothing will get written over by accident. When you're all back up and running, you can put the old one back in and set it to be a slave drive.
Good luck!
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THANKYOU now atleast i know i can do it
ok, anybody fancy giving me a bit more information on how to now???
edit: or just how to set SATA disks to slave and the like?
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When the computer boots, go into the BIOS menu, and you can edit the drives setup in there :)
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which button is that? is that F5?
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Off hand, i think it's either F2, F8 or F10, but it can vary... when the computer boots (just after the POST beep at the start), it'll say which button to press- something like 'Press F10 to enter setup'.
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confused already :shock:
theres two cables that go into it, big one, little one.
i only have one little one, so when i want to attach the second hard disk later, what do i dooooo
soo tired, thinking just doesn't work :cry:
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the thick cable if a sata is the power, so you will prob need to buy a sata cable
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yeah i thkn its the data cable. not too expensive atleast
thanks for all the help!
I won't have to reformat the old one when i connect it will I?
How will it boot if it has 2 HDs with OS's on?
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By removing the old disk while you install the new OS, will make sure that you don't format it by accident :)
If you set the disks correctly, it will boot from the primary first, so you won't have to worry. What would be a good bit of 'housekeeping' though, would be to (when you're all set up and running) copy all the old stuff you want to keep , to the 'new' disk, format the old one and chuck the stuff back- so you get rid of all the old system files that you don't/won't need, and free up space.
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By removing the old disk while you install the new OS, will make sure that you don't format it by accident :)
If you set the disks correctly, it will boot from the primary first, so you won't have to worry. What would be a good bit of 'housekeeping' though, would be to (when you're all set up and running) copy all the old stuff you want to keep , to the 'new' disk, format the old one and chuck the stuff back- so you get rid of all the old system files that you don't/won't need, and free up space.
Ok new disc is in and sorted, just need the data cable - but how do i set the SATA thing, it says that SATA does not have the primary and slave thing :?
I did intend to sort out what i wanted and reformat it btw, it was a messssss!
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In your Bios you can set Hard Drive priorities - There is no Master and slave because you can simply set which one to boot from.
If they have the same name it'll be trial and error - But other than that you can just set the 2nd hard drive as priority 1 and it will boot into that one.
Also, when installing whichever OS you're installing - Make sure you do it onto the new hard drive, and if you're unsure which one's which (should tell you how much space is on each, and you can work it out from there) just take out the one which you want to keep safe.
Off hand, i think it's either F2, F8 or F10, but it can vary... when the computer boots (just after the POST beep at the start), it'll say which button to press- something like 'Press F10 to enter setup'.
9/10 nowadays it's Delete for Bios - But sometimes you get F10.
I've never seen a motherboard that wants F2 or F8 for Bios :s
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Ahhh I almost miss my pc. :roll:
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well they are both 160gb - I am on special communications with dell after £60 of phone bills of me harrassing them. the sent me out a new one no questions.
and it is F2 lol
I was thinking of Dual booting eventually
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9/10 nowadays it's Delete for Bios - But sometimes you get F10.
I've never seen a motherboard that wants F2 or F8 for Bios :s
Phoenix BIOS machines are F10 these days
However Intel boards was always Ctrl-S and AMI-BIOS machines where the DEL key
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If you need a SATA cable, I've got a stack of then kickin around. My new motherboard came with 10...
PM me an address, I'll drop one in the post.
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you are aware that if you are just reinstalling the OS, you can usually just reinstall it, it probably won't need to be formatted [you can with windows XP and Suse Linux anyways]
and if you want dual boot, just set up both HDs with an OS on them and then it *should* give you the option on startup, if it doesn't then you need to edit your boot.ini file [although don't touch this file unless you know what you're looking for, it can screw up your entire boot process]
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it won't reinstall, i have several of the CD's and its just being a git really
i thought I would make the most of the situation and get dell to send me a new hard disk though (they are great for free stuff btw - despite the bad rep) then sort it out afterwards
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fair dos
and yeh, dell aren't too bad, i think most of the bad rep comes from the personal accounts, i got mine on a business account and i've never had a problem with them, i even got an engineer come to my house the next day and replace the motherboard for me when it blew up :D
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I'm on personal account, after £60 of phone bills, i got upgraded to next business day on site repair, a new laptop exchange (+ slight upgrade) an all in one printer. and they actually do things now when i ring them up.
future advice to anyone:
if you hear an indian voice, put down the phone and redial until you reach the Irish department
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if you hear an indian voice, put down the phone and redial until you reach the Irish department
lol yeh, although i can actually understand the indians better, can't hear a word through a thick irish accent lol
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I had a bad experience with Dell when i blew the power supply of my sisters machine up. The conversation was something like this:
Dell: What's the nature of the problem?
Me: the power supply has gone, i need to order a new power supply.
Dell: Ok sir, we'll try and identify the problem.
Me: I know what the problem is, its the power supply, i need to order a new one.
Dell: What happens when you press the power button?
Me: Nothing, because the power supply is broken. None of the diagnostic LEDs light up either- because the power supply is broken.
Dell: What colour is the LED on the power button of the monitor?
Me: It's in standby mode because the computer is not on (because the power supply is broken!)
Dell: Can you open the computer up and tell me if there are any lights on the motherboard?
Me: No, because the power supply is broken.
Dell: What about if you hold the power button down?
Me: Nope, still not worky, power supply still dead.
Dell: Ok sir, it appears that the power supply in your machine is broken, we can sort you out with another one.
Then i got put through to another department, who, surprise surprise couldn't help because they weren't the correct department. Got put through to another department who told me that because the machine is now out of the Dell product range, they don't supply the parts anymore, and i'd have to order through the 3rd party supplier.
They gave me a number, which was wrong so I had to go online to get the correct one. By this time I was so fed up with it all (30mins on't phone), that I couldn't face calling the 3rd party company, but got a whinging from my dad, so I had to call them. The conversation was something like:
Them: Good afternoon, how can I help?
Me: I'd like to order a replacement power supply for my Dell #modelnumber# please.
Them: Ok sir, that's £not_that_much, would you like anything else?
So angry!! How can Dell be such a pain in the arse, yet I was off the phone to the other company in less than two mins?!
Conclusion: Dell are rubbish :p
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I had a bad experience with Dell when i blew the power supply of my sisters machine up. The conversation was something like this:
Dell: What's the nature of the problem?
Me: the power supply has gone, i need to order a new power supply.
Dell: Ok sir, we'll try and identify the problem.
Me: I know what the problem is, its the power supply, i need to order a new one.
Dell: What happens when you press the power button?
Me: Nothing, because the power supply is broken. None of the diagnostic LEDs light up either- because the power supply is broken.
Dell: What colour is the LED on the power button of the monitor?
Me: It's in standby mode because the computer is not on (because the power supply is broken!)
Dell: Can you open the computer up and tell me if there are any lights on the motherboard?
Me: No, because the power supply is broken.
Dell: What about if you hold the power button down?
Me: Nope, still not worky, power supply still dead.
Dell: Ok sir, it appears that the power supply in your machine is broken, we can sort you out with another one.
Then i got put through to another department, who, surprise surprise couldn't help because they weren't the correct department. Got put through to another department who told me that because the machine is now out of the Dell product range, they don't supply the parts anymore, and i'd have to order through the 3rd party supplier.
They gave me a number, which was wrong so I had to go online to get the correct one. By this time I was so fed up with it all (30mins on't phone), that I couldn't face calling the 3rd party company, but got a whinging from my dad, so I had to call them. The conversation was something like:
Them: Good afternoon, how can I help?
Me: I'd like to order a replacement power supply for my Dell #modelnumber# please.
Them: Ok sir, that's £not_that_much, would you like anything else?
So angry!! How can Dell be such a pain in the arse, yet I was off the phone to the other company in less than two mins?!
Conclusion: Dell are rubbish :p
you'll probably find that the dell operators have a series of screens prompting them to ask certain questions, and it probably won't let them order a new part, or tell you if it's still in the range unless you answer the questions
.... incidentally, the software is probably written by microsoft .... ahem....
:D
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you spent 30 mins on the phone?
I spent 600 :?