Master/Slave hard drive question?

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Hi

This should be a simple one, but as I am simple too I know not the answer

A few years back I added a new internal hard drive to my PC. I then found that a lot of my programmes on my original C: drive wouldn't run, so I had to re-install them (but oddly enough some still work fine) onto the new G: drive

Is this down to the slave/master settings, as I really don't want to have to go through the hassle of re-installing all my software should I add another drive again.

Thanks

 

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Depends what you mean by "wouldn't run". What error message did you get?

The usual reason stuff won't run after adding drives is that the drive letters get changed. Often this is because the CDROM has changed, and some software wants its CD in the drive. This can often be fixed without having to reinstall by changing the paths in the registry - but that is a bit advanced!

Harry.

 

its not down to master and slave, as your hdd are picked by OS.

this is what i think:

its down to the registry and where you have installed the files

 

It was quite a long time ago, but I do remember some of the programmes just would not launch, and if I remember right Mr H there was a mention of pathways. I just found it odd that some would work and others wouldn't

Thanks for the pointers chaps, it's not a huge deal but handy to know if I come across it again

 

If the drive letters have changed, then ya could reassign them in computer management, and put them back to what they originally were, then the paths should work

 

I was taking the cue from "a long time ago" - older versions of windows were limited in how you could move things about!

Harry.

 

A very good point from yourself and Mr Raffaz, when I say a long time, it was the end of 2003 (in IT terms that does tend to be a long time, so I heard) and so far as I know it was all installed under XP.

Thinking about it, it does sound like a pathway problem, I do recall a message about certain files not being found, hence why it couldn't launch. In those days though, to me a 'hard drive' was something like an Austin Allegro

 

Cockles,

Questions:

1. Which operating system are you using?
2. What make and model is your first hard drive?
3. What make and model is your second hard drive?

 

Cockles, the real question is.. How did the programs get from the original C drive to the G drive?

I presume you cut and pasted them there, which will generally cause havoc with the paths as mentioned before.

Some programs will still work, if all the files they require are contained in the same folder tree. However, most programs when they are installed spread files around, typically dll (dynamic link library) files and when you cut and paste the program onto another drive you divorce the path relationship to these dlls etc.

If you are running out of space on your main windows drive *C* and you can't delete stuff to create room, the easiest way to move to a new drive is to use a program like Norton Ghost. That can take a snapshot of the original drive and exactly replicate it to larger new drive on the fly and it does it pretty fast. All you need to do after the program has run, is to move the new drive to the where the old one was ie the primary IDE and make sure it is set to master and boot up from the new drive and enjoy your extra space.

 

Good day to you sir

1. Windows XP professional
2. Couldn't tell you that I'm afraid
3. HDD Plus 8 40GB 720 ATA133 IDE

Does that help?

And in answer to your question Mr Rinse, no programmes were shifted through a cut and paste method. All it was, I had everything on the original C: drive, I had a brand new drive installed (which mapped as G which to all intents and purposes was totally empty and ready to use, yet when I fired up the system, all was well until I started to open programmes, which for the most part wouldn't open, so I had to un-install them from C: and re-install them onto G, then presto, they worked. That is what stumped me as so far as I could see, no pathways should have changed, my original C: drive was still C: and hadn't been altered at all.

A very rum phenomena, methinks?

 

Thats strange:hhhmmm

 

So what are D, E and F? Windows *normaly* allocates new drives in alpha order, unless there are other considerations. In some versions of windows things like CDs get moved around when this happens, and it is apps that need those drives that get broken.

Harry.

 

Let me think (going off memory here).

C: is original hard drive, E and F are DVD and CD-RW respectively, G is the newer drive, and D: suddenly appeared as a drive when the new one was installed, I have no idea what it is, it only has about 1.5 GB capacity and has one thing on it called 'ghost'

 

Yes what you have experienced is odd and does not happen normally.

That extra drive is probably a separate partition on the newer drive which probably contains a system restore image for the system it came out of.

You may not be able to see the image files in Windows.

 

Cockles,

Question:

• Did you change the jumper setting on the first hard drive prior to installing the second hard drive?