Help with SATA Hard Drive

[davidleehansel]

I need to reinstall windows Xp Home Edition W/SP2 in to my parents computer, but the thing is that we have a lot of pictures, music, and other data that we would like to keep.

I was thinking about buying a hard drive for there computer, and I was looking at this one

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5232706407&rd=1&sspagename=STRK:MEWA:IT&rd=1

I looked at this hard drive due to the fact that my parent's motherboard has 2 built in SATA device connectors. But the motherboard connectors are: 2 x Ultra DMA 133/100 and 2 x Serial ATA with RAID 0, 1 function, connections. Will a SATA-150 work with any of those connectors and will I have to buy a molex adapter or will the red cable that came with the motherboard work just fine.

Finally if everything above is correct and the computer will recognize the hard drive and set it up for me can I backup all the data I need to on the new hard drive and then format the Orignal hard drive and then reinstall windows Xp home edition and be able to move all my date back on to the Orignal hard drive and then use the new hard drive as a half backup and half storage for all future data.

Basically I just want to know if I buy the new hard drive: A) will it work, B) Do I have to buy an adapter of some sort, C) Will it set it's self up and D) if I put data on the new hard drive and then format the Orignal hard drive and reinstall an operating on the Orignal hard drive will I still have the data on the new hard rive to move back to the Orignal hard drive and then use the new hard drive as half storage and half for a backup hard rive, Thank you for all your help, who ever replies to this. Your information is very helpful. I will list my setup below for you guy's to get an idea on the setup it's going to go in.

Computer Specs:
New Power supply (I don't think it has a SATA power cord so I will have to buy a molex adapter, right)
Asus A7V600 motherboard
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2Ghz
640mb of ram
80 gig ide hard drive
DVD-ROM
cd-rw
floppy
sound blaster live 5.1 sound card
nivida 128mb video card
bios hasn't been updated due to the fact that everything works, so why fix it, if it isn't broke.

Please E-mail me directly at DavidLeeHansel@aol.com, thank you and have a nice day.

 

[rvnguy]

davidleehansel,

First, Thank You for posting with your specs. This makes it much eaiser to provide possible answers.

ASUS lists for the A7V600 mobo SATA support X2

A)Yes this drive will work

B)The drive (if new) should have a SATA "Data" connector as you have indicated, if the PSU does not have a SATA power connector you will need an adapter to provide the drive with power.

C)No it will not set itself up.

D)As far as how to set this up I will give a couple of possible senarios below.

You did not state why you have to re-install XP. I assume that there is a problem other than the HD has failed.

You could try to repair the current install of XP, depending upon what type of problem you are experiencing.
You can Boot to the XP cd by pressing "F9" during the boot sequence and selecting the ROM device as the boot device. Select install, win will look for a previous install and ask what you want to do. Careful here, only select repair the current install. It will then install ontop of the current version and if you are lucky it will be repaired.

If this does not work, I would physically install your new drive. In the BIOS setup select this new drive as the boot drive & diable or demote the IDE drive. Disconnect your current drive (to protect the data). Create a SATA driver floppy disk (should be on a CD with the drive; makedisk) Boot from the XP CD and begin install, when asked if there is a non standard device press "F6" and follow prompts for the drivers. XP should then install to the SATA drive. When complete. Reconnect the IDE drive and boot. You, hopefully, can read the drive and have you files present for use.

Hope this Helps


rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[davidleehansel]

I have to re-install Windows Xp Home Edition because somebody kept going to fake porn sites and they downloaded a winchin52.exe virus or what ever that file is (I'm not sure). But after that happened my computer started acting funny and doing weird stuff, so I would like to completely format the old ide hard drive after I move the valuable data to the new drive. Is this possible. I just want to know one last thing.

How would I go about actually setting up the hard drive, my computer actually has a raid utility installed and you can enter after it posts, the only thing you can do here is create a raid or edit one. Would that be a possible way of going at installing it. Or should I just install in my computer and then go to computer management in Xp and tell it to create a partition the size I need and then transfer all my data to it and then restart and boot from the windows Xp disc and format the ide hard drive and then reinstall a new copy of windows on it. Basically if I don't touch the perdition on the SATA hard drive my data won't be touched,right.

Well, that's my plan and how to install or how to go about setting it up, unless you inform me differently. Thank you for all your help, it's been very helpful and have a nice day.

David Lee Hansel

 

[rvnguy]

davidleehansel,

FirstOff: Be careful if you know that there is a virus, malware or other intrusion. Depending on what it is you could pass the infection when copying you data files/data files infected or some other anomally.

my computer actually has a raid utility installed

RAID is for setting up 2 or more drives to be treated as one. This is not what I think you are sttempting.
You just want to enable a SATA channel in your BIOS, and not RAID. You will need to make a 3.5 floppy for the SATA drivers to install them when XP asks for them.

If you have an up todate virus utility try to clean the drive before doing anything else. If you do not you can visit this link for a free over the web scan. This will be worth the time no matter what your connection speed is.

TREND Site

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Then I would follow the steps in my initial post after "If this does not work".
The WinXP install will format the drive prior to installation for you. No need to format it first.

As stated, when complete and you are as sure as you can be about the original drive being clean, you can re-connect it and boot and transfer your files over. With that done you can reformat it or whatever you like.


rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all