Installing HDD in floppy space?

[plainolebill]

I'm still using my 200N as my primary computer and hope to get a few more years out of it! So my questions are: I'd like to install a 250GB Sata hdd in my 200N and migrate my data and OS to the new drive. How hard would it be to install the HD into the floppy drive slot? How would I go about migrating the data and OS? Can I have an IDE drive and Sata operating at the same time? Any suggestions are welcome. They're nice litte computers aren't they?

Thanks, Bill

[tino]

Yes you can install a hard drive in the floppy disk bay.

I think the easiest way to migrate the data would be to unplug the old drive and just install a clean OS, then plug the drive back in.

An yes you can have a Sata hard drive and ATA hard drive operating at the same time.

[rrussell]

You might also look into Acronis Disk Director or True Image - you can plug in both drives, boot to a CD, copy your entire partition from the IDE to the SATA drive, then change the boot priority to boot from SATA instead.

(I use Disk Director far more than I ever thought I would, for resizing partitions, freeing up space, installing and moving drives around. It was a very good investment. Of course, I have five PCs in the house...)

Note that you'll have to install the 200N SATA drivers on the IDE installation before doing this, or WinXP might lose its mind after it boots up and realizes it doesn't have a drive to boot from. (It's a chicken/egg thing.)

[plainolebill]

Thanks for the good info. Is this correct: I install the SATA drivers, Acronis, install the SATA drive, slave the SATA to the IDE in BIOS then transfer the data, change the IDE to slave? Can I transfer the OS and data from the bootable disk?

Thanks, Bill

[rrussell]

There's no master/slave in SATAland - just one drive per cable, so you can leave the master-ness on the IDE drive alone.

But there is a "boot priority" option somewhere in there which tells the BIOS which device to boot from.

You have the order of events correct - there's an option in Acronis to make a bootable CD. Then you use that so you're not inside Windows using the drive when it tries to copy it.

Be aware that two hard drives will generate a fair amount of heat.  If you're handy at all, you might want to look up the "Zalman OP-1" mod in this forum and consider implementing it - it involves installing an intake fan on the front right side of the case, and an additional exhaust on the rear left.  You get tremendous crossflow inside your box and virtually no additional noise. (Maybe less noise, since the CPU fan can run more quietly.)

(When I was running Windows on the box with Speedfan installed, I could actually *turn off* the CPU heatsink fan and it would still stay cool - that's how much airflow the OP-1 fans introduced. Woot!)

[plainolebill]

Thanks for all the info. I just ordered two OP-1 fans from Newegg and I'll install those first. Did I read that I can run those on the 5V bus? Is that beneficial?

Thanks again, Bill

[rrussell]

Yep, if you run them at 5V they'll be all but silent.

Now - the easiest way to cut holes in the case is a 3" hole saw. Check for those at home depot or similar, and put down plenty of masking tape over the spot before you cut

Welcome to the world of modding!

[plainolebill]

I got the fans and installed them tonight - thanks to the people who took the time to post about this mod and the pictures it didn't take much time at all. Everything is running quite a bit cooler and quieter too since the system and cpu fans aren't running as fast.

I downloaded Acronis Migrate Easy and I'm hoping to install the sata drive tomorrow but I have couple more questions: Are the sata drivers on the ideq installation disk and can I just install them from XP prior to installing the drive? I see that the bios doesn't list anything about sata at all so how do I set priorities if the sata drive isn't listed?

Thanks, Bill

[rrussell]

Do you have the SATA interface enabled?  Similarly to the IDE ports, you can turn them on and off in the BIOS (I don't remember exactly where - advanced chipset features or sumthin' like that)

It would make sense if you haven't enabled the ports that the machine wouldn't offer up the drive as available.

?

When XP starts its install it says "press F6 for extra drivers" - hit f6 and a little later on it'll prompt for the disk.

OH ah. You will need a FLOPPY with the drivers on it - I have long since lost my 200N CD, but I believe there should be a folder on it (hopefully well-named) with files to copy to the floppy.  They're also downloadable from the biostar website.

Of course this means you'll need a floppy drive...

[plainolebill]

I installed the drive and evidently the drivers as too because I was able to format the drive and it now comes up in Explorer.  The floppy is no more and I removed the cable while I was installing the sata drive because of the limited space.  I'll check on the bios later, I'm not going to try to migrate the system tonight.

[rrussell]

I'm sorry, I'm losing my mind. Totally forgot you were migrating and not installing from scratch.

You won't need to do the f6 thing unless you're installing from scratch.

(sorry)

[plainolebill]

RRussell, My mind left town with no forwarding address, I'm 66 so I don't think it's coming back.

Anyhow I got the thing done and I'm running on the sata and formatting the ide drive as I type.  Now I'm going to Install a Matrox G450 DVI card.

Thanks for all your help and I can say for sure that I wouldn't have this stuff done without the help of this forum.

One other question: the owners manual states that the MB supports 2GB ram, if I remember correctly 1GB sticks weren't available at the time I put the 200N together or if they were they were probably ridiculously expensive - do you know if the 200N will actually run with 2GB ram? I ran a compatibility test on the Crucial(?) website and it came back that the maximum supported was 1GB

[rrussell]

I can vouch for 2gb.

I don't remember the brand I had - corsair, maybe? - but I had 2gb running on mine when it was my primary gaming rig.

Congrats!

(Those extra fans do make a difference, don't they?)

[rrussell]

Okay, now if you're feeling ambitious, you can try to dig up and install the CPUMate copper CPU fan described in this thread.

I have no idea where you'd find one these days, and it takes a fair bit of dremel work to make the base fit the Athlon XP's cpu socket, but it sure cooled down my processor like you wouldn't believe... That heatsink made it able to shut off the CPU fan entirely due to the cross ventilation from the OP-1 fans.

[rrussell]

Oh oh oh AND...

With a little ingenuity, you can flip the PSU in the 200N upside down, and cut a hole in the case immediately above where its fan ends up (put a grill over it).  

(Assuming, of course, you don't use the top of your PC for long-term storage...)

The end result of this is that the PSU now can suck in cool, fresh air from outside the case to cool itself, rather than relying on whatever's floating above the CPU.  Cooler air to the PSU = lower fan speed = less noise and at the same time of course longer life.

Okay, done now, really.

[plainolebill]

Ha ha, I'm not ambitious at all. Which memory can I use? DDR 333? 400? I have a 2600+ CPU. Will I need to change any settings if I use those memory sticks? In one post you mentioned putting a heat sink on the northbridge - where can I get one? CPU temp has dropped >10C since I put the zalman fans in, the sata drive is much faster than my old one.

Thanks, Bill

[rrussell]

You shouldn't need to change any settings (unless you want to get into overclocking...)

I currently have 1gig of OCZ ddr400 and 512mb of something purple (the brand is facing away from me but it's DDR433).  I'm not sure what speed it's actually running at

I guess would go with OCZ ddr400 if that's doable, and that way it'll be adaptable for whatever bus speed your CPU runs at.

TEN DEGREES!  That's great

Now look into speedfan, if you haven't already - it can dynamically adjust the FSB speed to change the CPU speed on demand, it'll save power and cool things down even MORE!

The heatsink I bought at CompUSA when it still existed around here, as part of a little kit with a couple of those, couple of small fans. It was sold explicitly as a northbridge cooler.  Any little "mom and pop" PC parts shop in your area should have one, and probably higherr quality than the one I have. (Or compusa, if you happen to still have one of those!)

R