Older Gigabyte MB with SATA interface

skywaverickskywaverick Just south of Lake Erie
edited November 2009 in Science & Tech
I have an older GA-7VAXP Ultra MB with 2 SATA connecters. I want to remove my 2 WD-120 PATA HDD's (striped) and install 1 WD-500 SATA to 1 of the SATA ports and 1 external WD-500 eSATA (back-up only) to the other SATA port. I have the Sil3112 SATA controller. I have read much from many as to which raid and controller driver combo to use. I read an older post from Spinner (01/18/05) on this subject and was impressed with the mod that was suggested. Any suggestions to fit my situation? I no longer want to stripe my drives, I just want 1 main drive with a external drive to function as back-up only. The external drive will be disconnected most of the time and only used every several days to back-up new data. I plan on copying all data from current drives to new external drive (via USB) before changing internal drive(s) to SATA. I have to do this because currently, my system stops responding after 5 minutes in normal mode. In safe mode, the system works perfect. I want to save 150Gb + of movies and pictures while I can, and then maybe some more invasive diagnostics to find problem. It might even be the MB itself. Thanks for any help.....

Comments

  • photodudephotodude Salt Lake, Utah Member
    edited November 2009
    Your on the right track for your plan....but need to copy using something like ghost or plan on a full os reinstall, as you'll lose the boot sector info without ghost.

    Before you get to any of that have you run a memtest? (starting point for any diagnostics....you may have a risk of data corruption depending on what your system issue is)

    Back to the Drive move.....
    I would get an SATA drive enclosure or dock for making the copy via ghost to the replacement WD-500 SATA. after copying pull the Raid0 and install the WD-500 SATA.

    here is a decent Dock
    Rosewill RX-DUS100 2.5" & 3.5" SATA to USB2.0 & eSATA Hard Drive Docking Station
  • skywaverickskywaverick Just south of Lake Erie
    edited November 2009
    photodude wrote:
    Your on the right track for your plan....but need to copy using something like ghost or plan on a full os reinstall, as you'll lose the boot sector info without ghost.

    Before you get to any of that have you run a memtest? (starting point for any diagnostics....you may have a risk of data corruption depending on what your system issue is)

    Back to the Drive move.....
    I would get an SATA drive enclosure or dock for making the copy via ghost to the replacement WD-500 SATA. after copying pull the Raid0 and install the WD-500 SATA.

    here is a decent Dock
    Rosewill RX-DUS100 2.5" & 3.5" SATA to USB2.0 & eSATA Hard Drive Docking Station

    Thanks for the suggestions, photodude. I don't wish to ghost my os because it might be my problem. I want to copy files only to external HDD, then install new internal HDD and install os fresh, upgrade os with sp2 & sp3, install all programs fresh, install all files that I saved on external HDD to new internal HDD, make sure everything works, then format the external HDD, and ghost copy everything to external HDD. My current os has been upgraded from ME 6 years ago and I wanted to start fresh. Just got my new eSATA external (with power supply and inclosure) and new internal HDD. NOW the fun begins.......
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