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| Thread ID: 70995 | 2006-07-23 07:15:00 | Turning 3 hard drives into one (Raid?) | Newteach (4990) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 472928 | 2006-07-23 07:15:00 | I have recently got my daughter a simple win xp machine that won't be connected to the internet but will be used to store her music and games. My question is that it has three 3 gig hard drives that are confusing her a little. She is quite knowledgable for a ten year old but is it possible to make the 3 separate hard drives appear as one in her 'My computer' folder. It is a cheap computer that was given to us along with the hard drives which we fitted and got going ourselves. We don't really want to have to go out and buy a bigger hard drive at this stage. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Newteach. |
Newteach (4990) | ||
| 472929 | 2006-07-23 07:24:00 | If the hdd with XP on it, is only 3 GB, you wont get much more on it. Since XP will take up 1.5 GB by itself. Nope, dont think u can use RAID, if the system doesnt support RAID. I would get a bigger hdd, and partition it. Since the one you have now, wont take long to fill up. |
Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 472930 | 2006-07-23 09:16:00 | Thanks Speedy, actually have three hard drives all of 3 Gig. Just want to be able to copy to one icon as to not confuse. | Newteach (4990) | ||
| 472931 | 2006-07-23 10:03:00 | If it is XP Pro, you could use Dynamic storage (a spanned volume) support.microsoft.com |
snoopy (74) | ||
| 472932 | 2006-07-23 11:46:00 | Thanks Speedy, actually have three hard drives all of 3 Gig. Just want to be able to copy to one icon as to not confuse. to have raid the hard drives have to be identical, not just in size, but type, speed etc |
Tux (606) | ||
| 472933 | 2006-07-23 14:46:00 | An interesting thing you might do is make new names and icons for the drives once you get them on the desktop . The one with Windows on it can be called "Operating System", which should not be too hard to understand and will not have to be placed on the desktop at all . This one would be the root drive only, and even though XP takes about 1/2 of it to run, it should stay that size if you aren't going online to get updates and patches that will seriously "grow" the area needed for XP . (You'll also save a lot of room by not having to install security programs and anti-stuff to protect you from online malware too . ) The second, called "My Music", and the third, "My Games" will make it look like specialized areas for just those things and will hide the fact that they indeed are really harddrives . You can place the hardrives on the desktop by click and drag or right click on the drive and "Send to" >> Desktop (create shortcut) . Then rename the harddrives by right clicking on them while they are on the desktop and use the "rename" command to do so . To change the icon for the drive, select "Properties", then "change icon" or "Customize", and pick a new icon from the bank of them that Windows provides . This way the hdds will look like custom folders that contain just games or music . Since disk space is at a premium, I'd get CCleaner for removing a lot of excess "install" files that aren't necessary once the game or music is up and running . Leaving these bits and pieces on the drives will suck up valuable resourses that you don't really have . |
SurferJoe46 (51) | ||
| 472934 | 2006-07-23 20:48:00 | Unfortunaly, you'll only be able to fit 2-4 games on one drive. That drive needs to be upgraded unless they are all old games (therefore taking up less than 200MB each). | pcuser42 (130) | ||
| 472935 | 2006-07-23 22:24:00 | RAID 0 (combining all drives into one) would be a really bad idea on old hard disks as any single disk failing would lead to all the data on the array being lost. | TGoddard (7263) | ||
| 472936 | 2006-07-24 03:09:00 | Sometimes (most times!) being too tight is not worth it . In my experience you will always have trouble with squeezing XP plus programs plus updates plus swap file etc onto 3GB . I wouldn't even try anything less than 6GB for a system drive . It is hugely frustrating continually having XP nagging about running out of disk space . And you did want to keep it simple for your daughter . Have you seen how cheap brand new drives can be? A drive can always be transferred to a newer system later, as well . If you want to keep it simple I'd suggest you go and buy a new drive of at least 40GB . |
linw (53) | ||
| 472937 | 2006-07-24 05:02:00 | I think Joe's suggestion is the best one. I doubt if the 10 year old girl is going to be demanding the enormous, goriest, latest games for at least a year. | Graham L (2) | ||
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