If you have an old FAT16 drive in a PC using Windows 95B or Windows 98, you can upgrade the disk to FAT32 using the Windows FAT32 Drive Converter Utility.. A drive with the latest versio
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Trang 2H A R D WA R E T I P S KIRK STEERS
H A R D WA R E T I P S
graph shows the drive’s capacity, the storage space
in use, and the amount available (see FIGURE 1)
4.2GB or 3.2GB:
Some PCs manufactured before 1998 have BIOSs that limit disks to one of these two capacities To remedy this, either get
a BIOS upgrade or buy a new disk controller card
2GB: Any hard drive using the FAT16 file system can recognize only up to 2GB
This includes systems
run-ning Windows 3.x and the
original version of Win-dows 95 If you have an old FAT16 drive in a PC using Windows 95B or Windows
98, you can upgrade the disk to FAT32 using the Windows FAT32 Drive Converter Utility You can-not use any disk utilities designed for FAT16 drives after making the switch, but your 16-bit applications will run just fine
A drive with the latest version of the ATA data transfer technology—currently the Ultra DMA/100 mode (also called Ultra ATA/100)—will work at top data
mp3 collections, gargantuan software
programs, and multimegabyte video files
have left PC owners scrambling for free
storage space The best solution for most
PC users is to buy and install a new hard
disk Fortunately, now is a great time to
buy: Drives are bigger, faster, and cheaper
than ever (For more on the recent crop
of drives, see “Livin’ Large” at www
pcworld.com/reviews/march2001/large.)
But not every PC can
ac-commodate today’s ATA
(EIDE) hard drives Some
drives may have more
stor-age capacity than your PC
can recognize, some may
be too fast for your system,
and some may not fit in
your PC’s case Before you
buy the latest drive, make
sure your PC can use it
Hard disks with
double-digit–gigabyte capacities
are no problem for most
PCs purchased in the last
three years But older
sys-tems have drive-capacity
limitations Here are common size limits,
and how you can get around them
8.4GB:Systems with a BIOS date before
1998 typically don’t support drives with
capacities greater than 8.4GB If your
BIOS doesn’t support large-capacity
drives, see if your PC vendor’s Web site
offers a BIOS update for your machine
If you install a drive with a capacity of
8.4GB or greater and your PC fails to
rec-ognize its full capacity (and you can’t find
a BIOS update), you can bypass the BIOS
and the onboard disk controller by
in-stalling an updated ATA disk controller
card such as the $34 Ultra100TX2 from
Promise Technology (www.promise.com,
800/888-0245) To view your drive’s
capacity, open My Computer, right-click
your hard disk, and select Properties A
transfer speeds only in PCs with the latest chip sets Most PCs made since 1999 sup-port the previous Ultra DMA/33 mode, and many support Ultra DMA/66 mode
To find out which mode your PC sup-ports, check your system’s documentation
or visit your PC manufacturer’s Web site There are six ATA standards (ATA-1 through ATA-6) and often several modes for each Manufacturers have assigned their own names to some modes—some-times to denote added capabilities FIGURE
2provides some ATA perspective
Your new hard drive’s ATA mode does
not have to match that of your PC The
lat-est drives will operate at the fastlat-est mode your PC supports Unless you often move huge files, a lower mode won’t cut perfor-mance much Still, save money and buy a drive that matches your PC’s capabilities
Find more tips at www.pcworld com/heres_how We welcome your tips and questions and pay
$50 for published items Kirk Steers is a
PC World contributing editor.
Fast Monitor Resets
DO YOU FREQUENTLY change your moni-tor’s resolution and color-depth settings to accommodate various programs and graph-ics? Here’s a shortcut: Enable Windows’ Quickres utility, and a small monitor icon will appear in your system tray Click it once to display a list of all resolution/color-depth settings that your PC’s monitor supports In
Windows 98 and Me, select Start•Settings•
Control Panel, open Display, select Settings,
and click Advanced; then, under the
Gener-al tab, select Show settings icon on taskbar.
Find the Perfect Hard
Disk for Your PC
FIGURE 1: SEE DRIVE capacity
as a graph in My Computer.
FIGURE 2: THE ATA STANDARD HAS APPEARED in many variations over the years, so be careful
to choose a hard drive that uses a version of ATA that will work with your PC.
STANDARD Introduced data transfer mode Also known as (megabytes per second) Maximum burst rate
The Many Names of IDE
ATA-1 ATA-2 ATA-3 ATA-4 ATA-5 ATA-6
PIO mode 1 PIO mode 3, 4
Ultra DMA mode 2 Ultra DMA mode 4 Ultra DMA mode 5
No performance change; added diagnostic and security features.
IDE Enhanced IDE (EIDE), Fast-ATA
Ultra DMA/33, Ultra ATA/33 Ultra DMA/66, Ultra ATA/66 ATA/100, Ultra ATA/100
1 to 4 11.1, 16.7
33 66 100
Trang 3rRun the new drive-installation software.
Almost all hard drives ship with installation soft-ware that takes care of formatting and parti-tioning Some even help you transfer data from your old disk to the new one You must run most installation software before you physically install the new drive, but check the drive’s manual or installation poster You’ll either install and run the software from within Windows, or boot from
a floppy disk Program details vary by drive man-ufacturer, so read the directions carefully.
ePrepare your PC’s existing hard drive To prevent future problems, make sure the
cur-rent drive in your PC is trouble-free Run ScanDisk (Start•Programs•Accessories•System
Tools•Scan Disk) and check the Thorough test option Then run Disk Defragmenter
(Start•Programs•Accessories•System Tools•Disk Defragmenter) These tests sometimes
take hours to complete if you haven’t run them before, but you’ll save time and headaches
later in the installation process by ensuring that you will be copying error-free data.
Next, make a full
b a c k u p o f y o u r hard drive if you’re able to, or at least back up your vital data and configura-tion files from your favorite programs.
Don’t forget files
l i ke n o r m a l d o t
f r o m M i c r o s o f t
Wo rd a n d Bo o k -marks or Favorites
f r o m y o u r W e b browser.
fers, but the overall performance differ-ence is not that dramatic because the bursts involve only tiny amounts of data
Still, if you want the best performance out of your new drive, your PC must have on-board Ultra DMA/100 support For about $40, you can buy a card that adds Ultra DMA/100 to your PC from a com-pany like Promise (www.promise.com)
Or you can just settle for the interface that your PC uses now
Because your new hard disk will be big-ger and faster than the one your PC cur-rently uses, plan on making the new drive your primary drive—the new home for your operating system and applications
You can attach the old drive as a secon-dary hard disk and use it for archives and less frequently accessed data
All major drive makers pack software with their upgrade kits that prepares the drive for data (partitioning and format-ting) and can also copy exactly what’s on your current drive to the new one, helping
to make the upgrade a snap
Stan Miastkowski is a PC World con-tributing editor.
tGo under the hood Turn off your PC and unplug it before you remove the cover And before you begin working under your PC’s hood, put on an antistatic wrist strap (available from local electron-ics supply stores) and clip it to a grounded metal object.
195
i n s t a l l i n g a n e whard drive remains
one of the most popular upgrade projects
for PC users And it’s easy to see why
Today’s drives are bigger than ever and
bargain priced, and they offer a
perfor-mance boost, as well You’ll need that
extra space for the increasingly roomy OS
installs and gigabyte-eating applications
that are the norm these days And don’t
forget graphics, audio, and video files
If your budget is limited, you can
up-grade to a 20GB drive for as little as $120;
a medium-size 40GB drive will set you
back $150 or thereabouts For maximum
storage space, you can invest in a 60GB
or 80GB behemoth, although prices for
these larger drives are in the
$200-to-$300 range If you’re comfortable making
the upgrade without installation software,
you can save a few bucks ($10 to $30) by
purchasing a bare drive
Manufacturers offer most drives in both
5400-rpm and 7200-rpm versions While
the 5400-rpm drives are slightly less
ex-pensive than the 7200-rpm models, the
latter deliver a genuine performance boost
in the form of quicker access times and
improved data transfers
194
U P G R A D E G U I D E STAN MIASTKOWSKI
U P G R A D E G U I D E
Install a Bigger, Faster Hard Drive
T H E T O P D O W N
Benefits: Higher
capacity, better performance
Cost: $100 (20GB)
to $325 (80GB)
Expertise level:
Intermediate
Time required: 1 to 2 hours Tools required: Phillips screwdriver,
needle-nose pliers, antistatic wrist strap (recommended)
Vendors: IBM (www.storage.ibm.com),
Maxtor (www.maxtor.com), Quantum (www.
quantum.com), Seagate (www.seagate.
com), Western Digital (www.wdc.com)
If you need…
Ultra DMA/100 card: Ultra100 $40
(www.promise.com)
uSet the drive jumpers.
Usually, you’ll install your new drive as the sec-ond drive on the
p r i m a r y I D E channel (the same chan-nel where the current drive
i s co n n e c te d ) When two IDE drives are connected to a single cable, one must be desig-nated ‘Master’, and the other ‘Slave’.
The jumper settings are printed on the drives If you’ll be using the new disk
as your PC’s boot drive, set
its jumper to Master, and
change the jumper settings
on your old drive to Slave.
(Check the included instal-lation software to make sure that it supports copy-ing of the data over to your new hard disk.)
The newest IDE hard drives are back-ward-compatible with the Ultra DMA/66 interface found on most PCs made in the last few years But most of today’s drives support the Ultra DMA/100 interface (alternatively called ATA/100), which offers burst transfer speeds of up to 100MB per second In some operations, the new interface can speed up data
trans-iPut it all back together Install the new drive Attach the two connectors on the new ribbon cable to the old and new hard disks (It doesn’t matter which of the connectors goes where.) Make sure the red wire on the cables goes to Pin 1 Also make sure the other end of the cable is securely connected to the primary IDE connector on the motherboard, and that it’s correctly connected
so that the red wire on the cable goes to Pin 1 on the motherboard connector (A secondary IDE connector
is used for things like your CD-ROM and CD-RW drives.) Plug in the power connectors to both drives Double-check all your connections; don’t put the cover back on until you’re sure that everything’s working correctly.
oCheck your system’s setup program and finish up Make sure the hard drive installation utility disk is in the floppy drive; then turn your PC on Enter your PC’s setup utility (usually by pressing <Delete>, <F1>, or <F2>
at start-up, although details vary by manufacturer) Then make sure drives 1 and 2 are set to AUTO If they’re
not, your PC may not detect your new drive Save the setup settings, and reboot from the installation utility floppy disk Follow the directions to set up your new drive and copy the data from the old drive to the new.
Finally, remove the floppy and reboot your
PC It should start Windows normally When you’re sure everything’s working, reformat your old drive to wipe out its superfluous data and to prepare it for new files.
Find a space for the new drive Most PC cases have an eas-ily accessible space for your new drive, usually right next to the exist-ing drive.
Find the drive Note where the red wire of the ribbon cable meets the drive (Pin 1) so you can connect the new cable correctly (Hint: Mark the location with masking tape.) Find a free power
con-nector You need power for your new drive If your power supply has
no free connector, get a Y-adapter that turns one
c o n n e c t i o n into two.
Use the new cable Current drives require an 80-wire cable for best performance, and most drives ship with one Remove the old cable and replace it with the new one (the connectors are compatible).
Trang 4Check, optimize, and back up your drive(s).
First, select Start•Programs•Accessories•
Sys-tem Tools•ScanDisk, click Thorough, and check the
Automatically fix errors box Then click Start.
Next, defragment each drive by selecting
Start•Pro-grams•Accessories•System Tools•Disk Defragmenter.
To use Windows 9x’s or Me’s built-in backup utility,
select Start•Programs•Accessories•System Tools•
Backup and follow the directions (If the utility isn’t
there, then for Windows 9x, check
Start•Settings•Con-trol Panel•Add/Remove Programs•Windows Setup•
Accessories, and for Windows Me, run Msbexp.exe
from the Addons/MSBackup folder on the Me CD.) In
Windows XP Professional, select Start•Control Panel•
Performance and Maintenance•Back up your data.
ing out XP, or even installing Linux), then you’ll absolutely need multiple partitions
Think of a partition as a container for data, like one drawer of a file cabinet
Each partition uses a file system to store
and name data Windows 98 and Me use the FAT32 file system FAT32 allows for greater maximum partition sizes and stores data more efficiently than the FAT16 file system used by DOS and the first versions of Windows 95
Windows NT introduced the NTFS file system, which uses space more
efficient-152
no matter the capacity of your PC’s
hard drive, chances are that it’s set up to
function as one giant data dump Though
that’s fine for most users, dividing your
drive into multiple partitions (additional
drive letters) can make life easier: At the
least, keeping all your data—such as
doc-uments, worksheets, and images—in a
partition separate from the operating
sys-tem and applications simplifies backups
and can increase your PC’s performance
And if you plan on using multiple
oper-ating systems (adding Windows 2000,
try-ly and offers better data security Win-dows 95, 98, and Me can’t “see” the data
in an NTFS partition; however, Windows
2000 and XP can read from and write to both NTFS and FAT32 partitions
If you’re starting with a new, blank hard drive, partitioning is easy The installation routines of Windows NT, 2000, and XP give you some control over partitions Other versions of Windows come with FDISK, a basic partitioning utility that you copy to a bootable floppy
But if you want to have extensive parti-tioning options, you’ll need a utility such
v-com.com) or PartitionMagic ($69,
www.powerquest.com) They offer such options as changing the size of partitions and converting from different file sys-tems And, given enough free space, they preserve the data stored on your drive
Stan Miastkowski is a PC World contributing editor.
H E R E ’ S H O W
S T A N M I A S T K O W S K I
STEP BY STEP
Partition Your Hard Drive
run the partitioning software, decide how you want to orga-nize your hard drive(s) Con-sider the size of the drive, whether you
wa n t to s i m p l y segregate data from the operat-ing system and applica-tions or create a more complex
structure, and whether you want to run
more than one OS Read your partitioning soft-ware’s manual for suggestions Major partitioning util-ities also have wizards that lead you through the process.
2
Run the software.
Once you’ve
decid-ed how to set up your
partitions, follow the
di-rections to install and
run the partitioning
ware Although the
soft-ware won’t let you make
incorrect choices, you
should check and
dou-ble-check the new partitions to make sure you’ve allocated all the drive’s space.
Creating and moving partitions may take 30 minutes or more, depending on
how full your drive is The software will also format the new partitions for you.
creat-ed, reboot your PC to complete the process You can then move your data around or install a new operating sys-tem If you plan to store all your data in one of the new par-titions, you’ll have to tell your applications where to save files in the future Usually, you can set this from the Pref-erences menu or File Locations tab in each application.
4
Problems? If you have problems accessing or using the new partitions, use the emergency disks that came with the partitioning software to double-check that the par-titions were created and formatted If they still don’t work, then it’s time to contact tech support.
5
Windows XP Other OS Apps Data