How to configure a 2nd SCSI SATA drive?

[Guest]

22:26 01/10/2007

How to configure a 2nd SCSI SATA drive?
---------------------------------------

Specs: Win XP Pro SP2, Pentium 4 3 GHz, 445 MB RAM

Following drive specs obtained via 'Computer Management' and 'Device Manager':

Disk 0: ST316081 5AS SCSI Disk Device / 75 GB
Disk 1: ST380811 0AS SCSI Disk device / 150 GB (just added & initialized;
not yet configured, partitioned, formatted, etc.)


These drives are SATA drives. I know v little about SCSI and SATA drives
except
for what I'v just read on the Net. SEAGATE Website says no jumpers need be
set
and that all drives are considered as Masters. I do not know the implications
of having 2 Master drives. The following is from SEAGATE Website:

----------------------------------
Serial ATA drives are designed for easy installation with no jumpers,
terminators, or other settings. It is not necessary to set any jumpers on
this drive for proper
operation. The jumper block adjacent to the signal connector is only needed
in some cases when connecting your SATA II drive to an older SATA I
controller.

Each drive on the serial ATA interface connects in a point-to-point
configuration with the serial ATA host adapter. There is no master/slave
relationship because each drive is considered a master in a point-to-point
relationships. If two drives are attached on one serial ATA host adapter, the
host operating system views the two devices as if they were both “masters†on
two separate ports. This means both drives behave as if they are Device 0
(master) devices. Each drive has its own cable.

Your serial ATA host adapter may provide master/slave emulation options. See
your host adapter documentation for details.
----------------------------------

There are 4 SATA connectors on the mobo - 2 red (1 & 2); 2 black (3 & 4) -
and I don't have a clue as to the difference between the red and the black
ones - unless maybe the black ones are for 'Slave drives'.


I would like to make the new 2nd drive a Slave (if possible and if
adviseable) but have no idea how to go about it. Wouldn't have a clue about
any "host adapter documentation"; seems like a bit of overkill, just to make
a drive a slave drive. Thought Windows might give the option. With IDE it's a
matter of simple drive jumper relocation.

In Disk Management I got confronted w/ a riske "Dynamic Volume" wizard. "The
Elder Geek" provides some articles on this which made my hair stand on end
and my skin crawl. For sure I don't want to convert the Disk to Dynamic
Volume or RAID, etc. No way!

The article also givesa warning about not being able to convert back; yet
Windows Help (via 'Computer Management') says it's a simple matter and gives
the steps.

Who's right?

Fortunately and somehow I got the wizard to finally give me the 'basic disk'
option.


------------------------------------------

1. All I want to do is to make this 2nd drive a simple FAT32 backup drive
with a total of 4 partitions - and hopefully Windows XP will give me the
FAT32 option somewhere along the line. I don't want NTFS for several reasons.

2. If I cannot get the 'Slave drive' option, is it OK to just go ahead and
assume it'll turn into a 2nd Master? What are the consequences of this?

3. How do I partition this thing? Should I / do I need to first create a
primary
partition and then an extended partition, which I then partition into 3
logical
drives? or how?

4. Do I need to / can I (if I want to) install an OS (like Win XP Pro) on
the primary
partition? Is there any advantage to this? Would there be a conflict created
between the existing OS on Disk 0 and the new one on Disk 1 or would the
system boot normally via the OS on the C: drive?


I did not see any answers to any of the above specific questions in the
Windows Help on the issue in Computer Management.


Could someone please supply me with some understandable answers to the above?

Thank you very much,

 

[Patrick Keenan]

22:26 01/10/2007

How to configure a 2nd SCSI SATA drive?

Your drives are either SCSI or SATA, they cannot be both. From the model
numbers you p;rovided , these are SATA drives.

In reality, SATA and SCSI are different things. SCSI is recognisable by a
totally different connector (much wider than SATA). Also, SCSI drives are
not common, and tend to have smaller capacities and be much more expensive
than SATA.

NT, 2000 and XP for some reason grouped these drives with SCSI.

Generally, to add and configure a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) SATA drive to a
system, you shut down, plug the drive(s) in, restart, allow Windows to
detect them. From Disk Management, select each raw drive and create
partitions, then format them and assign drive letters as appropriate.
Start using them.

That's it. Your system will have one primary drive, and then as much space
and as many drive letters as have been added with your disk installs of
non-primary drives.

You appear to be trying to make this much more complex than it is.

---------------------------------------

Specs: Win XP Pro SP2, Pentium 4 3 GHz, 445 MB RAM

Following drive specs obtained via 'Computer Management' and 'Device
Manager':

Disk 0: ST316081 5AS SCSI Disk Device / 75 GB
Disk 1: ST380811 0AS SCSI Disk device / 150 GB (just added & initialized;
not yet configured, partitioned, formatted, etc.)


These drives are SATA drives. I know v little about SCSI and SATA drives
except
for what I'v just read on the Net. SEAGATE Website says no jumpers need be
set
and that all drives are considered as Masters. I do not know the
implications
of having 2 Master drives. The following is from SEAGATE Website:

There are 4 SATA connectors on the mobo - 2 red (1 & 2); 2 black (3 & 4) -
and I don't have a clue as to the difference between the red and the black
ones - unless maybe the black ones are for 'Slave drives'.

They are generally marked for identification. The function doesn't differ.

No slaves and no masters and no jumpers with SATA. It's very easy to use.

There are four SATA channels on your motherboard. One drive attaches to
each.

I would suggest that you start with 1 and work towards 4, sequentially.

I would like to make the new 2nd drive a Slave (if possible and if
adviseable)

Why? You say this several times and give no reason.

This terminology is not applicable to SATA. I would suggest that your
desire to do this may be due to a simple misunderstanding or lack of
information.

It's much easier than you appear to think.

but have no idea how to go about it. Wouldn't have a clue about
any "host adapter documentation"; seems like a bit of overkill, just to
make
a drive a slave drive.

Why is it that you wish to make a drive a "slave"?

Thought Windows might give the option. With IDE it's a
matter of simple drive jumper relocation.

No need for jumpers with SATA as there is only one drive per channel.

In Disk Management I got confronted w/ a riske "Dynamic Volume" wizard.
"The
Elder Geek" provides some articles on this which made my hair stand on end
and my skin crawl. For sure I don't want to convert the Disk to Dynamic
Volume or RAID, etc. No way!

Correct You want Basic disks for most purposes.

The article also givesa warning about not being able to convert back; yet
Windows Help (via 'Computer Management') says it's a simple matter and
gives
the steps.

Who's right?

"simple" depends on what you did and what your skills and knowledge are.

Fortunately and somehow I got the wizard to finally give me the 'basic
disk'
option.

It's the default.


Why do you want FAT32?

with a total of 4 partitions - and hopefully Windows XP will give me the
FAT32 option somewhere along the line. I don't want NTFS for several
reasons.

If the partitions are over 40 gig or so, XP will not allow you to format as
FAT, only as NTFS.

You would need to boot the system with something else and format the
partitions there.

There are a lot of good reasons for formatting as NTFS.

The few good reasons for *not* doing so include having to dual-boot with an
OS that does not support NTFS, or regularly attaching the drive to such an
OS. If the other OS is accessing it via XP and a network, the format isn't
an issue as XP does the translation.

2. If I cannot get the 'Slave drive' option,

You can't, it isn't part of the SATA concept. You would need to use IDE
drives for this, but in any case, I don't believe you will find any benefit.

Why do you want this, or why do you *think* you want this?

While the master/slave model does not apply to SATA where it's one drive per
channel, it's also not relevant to partitioning or formatting.

is it OK to just go ahead and
assume it'll turn into a 2nd Master?

No.

Each SATA channel in use will have one drive. The system will have a
primary drive.

What are the consequences of this?

There will be one primary system drive, and other non-primary drives.
That's it. The boot sequence is determined elsewhere.

3. How do I partition this thing? Should I / do I need to first create a
primary
partition and then an extended partition, which I then partition into 3
logical
drives? or how?

How you partition it depends on your needs. Drives this size many people
leave to one partition and format NTFS.

There's this idea that partitioning somehow allows some safety for backups.
This is true in the sense that if you accidentally format or remove one
partition, the others are safe. However, it's just as common for drives to
fail, and then all partitions are equally inaccessible. Also, a single
backup location is asking for trouble. Drives and disks fail. Make more
than one copy to more than one physical disk and store them in physically
different locations.

Creating one partition and then four directories that you then map or subst
so that these folders appear as drives, is another approach that removes the
size limitations necessarily imposed by partitioning.

But how you partition depends on your needs. Don't know what those are.

4. Do I need to / can I (if I want to) install an OS (like Win XP Pro) on
the primary partition?

So you now also wish to have a second install of XP on the system? Why?

Yes you can create a dual-boot system, but only you can tell if you "need"
to do so.

Is there any advantage to this?

That depends on whether you "need" to install XP again. You will need a
second license.

Would there be a conflict created
between the existing OS on Disk 0

And what *is* this "existing OS"?

It can "conflict" if you are not careful. Dual-boots have to be
implemented with some care.

and the new one on Disk 1 or would the
system boot normally via the OS on the C: drive?

That would depend on how you performed the second install and where its
files are. Normally with dual-boots you set up a selector screen.

I did not see any answers to any of the above specific questions in the
Windows Help on the issue in Computer Management.

Some of the questions aren't relevant to its topics.

Could someone please supply me with some understandable answers to the
above?

Frankly, I will suggest that you need to rephrase some of your questions and
provide more information with them.


HTH
-pk

 

[Guest]

OK. Thanks Patrick. That looks like about as comprehensive an answer as I'll
ever
get or need. Fact is, in last few hours I've browsed the Net extensively to
see what
I could dig up on my own, if anything. Mostly it confirms what you've said
and then
some.

I did wonder about the SCSI / SATA thing. I came across something a while
back
that kept nagging me - something about not being able to do some type of
partitioning or formating on them, unlike as w/ IDE drives. Can't recall.
When
Windows told me it was SCSI, I took it at face value. Live and learn. Good
thing
I asked. I didn't see that fact mentioned anywhere in the tons of data on
the issues
I've downloaded in last few hours.

The questions I asked are out of curiosity. I want to know as I'm not up on
this stuff
and no matter what anyone says, as far as I'm concerned, the Windows Help is
hopelessly (maybe purposely) truncated and out of context. If you have little
background on the issues, there's simply not enough contiguous detail. I
realize
one can't be too detailed - but a bit more would be nice.

It's 3:30 AM here in Thailand and I don't have the time now to defend my
thought
processes, such that they are. I have to get this thing working now. My
problem
is that if a thing isn't detailed and listed step by step (w/ some ref
history), I just
don't get it.

For instance, where it says you can create Primary, extended and logical
partitions, its confusing to me because, for one thing (of many), it doesn't
say explicitly that
the primary partition must be smaller than the size of the disk space minus
the
sum of the spaces of the other required partitions (I want 5, now,
actually). I had
mistakenly assumed that the primary partition had to take up the whole disk
space
and the others to be formed in it. Sori, but my brain just getting too old
to see the
obvious, I guess. But that's just one thing of many. I'm getting there now,
though.

I've already done what you said and I'm formating all 5 partitions (I hope I
get that
many) in NTFS. I've just finished the primary. We'll see how she goes.

As for "Slave drives", well, as you imply and as I mentioned, I just wasn't
clear on
the SATA concept. Your input helped to set me straight. In old days, when
MBR, etc., blew on the Master IDE, I recall I had to "slave" it to another
Master, so that I could recover my data via DOS or Windows (whatever worked)
from the temp Slave, before attempting to fix it. So I guess it stuck in my
head.

Offhand, It looks to me now that it might be more difficult to access data
on a
similarly corrupted SATA drive, particularly one formated w/ NTFS.

As for the 'basic disk' being the default, it most certainly wasn't in my
case and
I couldn't figure it for a long time. Perhaps that wizard popped up because
the
drive was larger than 32 GB (actually, abt 150 GB). Same reason I never saw
the
FAT32 option till I assigned a 30GB partition space.

I know about the false sense of security of the 'partition fallacy'. My
friend here
also does, which is why he asked me to help him install the 2nd HD as a
"backup" HD for his prime disk data and his portable, etc. That's better than
nothing - or backing up to some partition on his prime drive.

As for my preference for FAT 32, its several things. Right or wrong, I've
read
articles in the past about fatal NTFS and NTFS encryption type problems. I
also
had this idea that a corrupted or virus-infected FAT32 drive was easier to
access and repair (via DOS, as well - tho' technically FAT32 is not supposed
to be
accessible via regular flavors of DOS). Then too, I'm conservative and like
to
stick w/ the tried and true. Don't like experimenting w/ new things - til
they're
fully proven. Not anti-progress; just over-cautious maybe.

As for copy of OS on 2nd drive, well, why not? After all, the whole drive is
intended
as backup. Would save a lot of time and fiddling if the 1st drive blew,
don't you
think?

Anyhow, I certainly appreciate your highly detailed response - precisely
what I
needed. Made me think, too. Believe I've got this under control now; so
better get
back and finish it.

Really appreciate,

 

[Lil' Dave]

Windows interprets for namesake, other than onboard ide drives, as scsi.
This includes scsi, add-on adapter ide connected hard drives, and SATA.

4 primary partitions per hard drive. No more using dos, windows tools, and
most 3rd party software for partitioning. In this context, an extended
partition is part of that count (not the logical drives within that extended
partition).

The operating system booted from must be able to know how to access the SATA
hard drive. Msdos may not be able to do that.
Dave

 

[Guest]

OK. Thanks, Lil' Dave. Your points are noted. Clarifies things a bit more for
me.
The drive is all formatted to NTFS now, so I guess can't use DOS to much (or
any) effect now anyway. I'll check it out.

Thanks again,