USB Enclosure & 160G IDE

[BluesDog]

Greetings,

I have two Samsung 80G SATA drives which have always sorta worried me, so i just got a 160G IDE for to back up my stuff. I read the sticky about large drive support in Windows, and that seemed to answer my question but i wanted to double-check... is Service Pack level the only worry i have?

Because what i was gonna do was install the new drive to the m/b controller and back up all my important stuff, then take it out and put it in an old USB enclosure so i can use it with the rest of my computers too. All of them have SP2.

I was worried enough to find a forum because the new drive spec is "Ultra ATA/100", and while i knew my m/b controller was up to that, i wasn't sure what would happen when i put it in the USB case and attached it to my old laptop.

Also i was vaguely thinking to dis-attach my SATA drives and install Windows to the new one, so i could boot my computer in an emergency. Or, maybe just a PE environment, so i could use it for general rescue operations. I haven't had my second cup of coffee yet, so i'm not sure if this is a good plan? Seems to me it should work so long as i just change the boot order to whichever device i want to boot from?

Thanks,
-jb

 

[donkey42]

I have two Samsung 80G SATA drives which have always sorta worried me, so i just got a 160G IDE for to back up my stuff. I read the sticky about large drive support in Windows, and that seemed to answer my question but i wanted to double-check... is Service Pack level the only worry i have?

yes & no, yes XP SP1 and greater can't recognize over 137Gb but there are other things to consider (e.g. your BIOS may be out dated or your HDD controller or drivers may be outdated

I was worried enough to find a forum because the new drive spec is "Ultra ATA/100", and while i knew my m/b controller was up to that, i wasn't sure what would happen when i put it in the USB case and attached it to my old laptop.

what OS is on the laptop & how old is the laptop

Also i was vaguely thinking to dis-attach my SATA drives and install Windows to the new one, so i could boot my computer in an emergency. Or, maybe just a PE environment

i have no experience of WinPE, i've never used it but i have heard some good reports, & when i used XP i was researching this cos it sounded good

 

[BluesDog]

yes & no, yes XP SP1 and greater can't recognize over 137Gb but there are other things to consider (e.g. your BIOS may be out dated or your HDD controller or drivers may be outdated

Well, i'm not worried about my computer, i built it just last year. But i was worried b/c assume there's an IDE controller in the USB enclosure, and that's very old. It's USB 2.0, but i can't remember how long ago i bought it.

My laptop(s) are XPSP2 but they're also pretty "old" i reckon from four to six years old. But i'm not planning to try to boot them from the USB drive and i don't think they'll even do that anyway. I only want to be sure i don't corrupt the data on my new drive if i put it in the USB enclosure and plug it into a laptop. Or anything else, comes to that.

So i guess what i'm asking is, after Windows is booted, will the Windows drivers do all the address translating etc. needed to run the drive in the USB enclosure, or must all hardware be compatible with the drive? The enclosure is an Enermax EHD-350; i wasn't able to google any info about its guts.

i have no experience of WinPE, i've never used it but i have heard some good reports, & when i used XP i was researching this cos it sounded good

BartPE is awesome, only i've found it a bit unreliable (and very slow..) when run from CD. Most of my boxen other than laptops will boot from USB, so i thought it might be a cool thing to have on a portable hard drive.

-jb

 

[donkey42]

Well, i'm not worried about my computer

sorry

i was worried b/c assume there's an IDE controller in the USB enclosure, and that's very old. It's USB 2.0, but i can't remember how long ago i bought it.

no, there is an IDE emulator / port replicator inside it

will the Windows drivers do all the address translating etc. needed to run the drive in the USB enclosure, or must all hardware be compatible with the drive?

put simply, i don't know[ot]you've lost me, i'm not that good[/ot]

BartPE is awesome

dunno, like i said i've never used them but i do have an old bookmark for the 911 rescue CD but i remember it as being called Nanny 911[ot]they must have changed the name[/ot]