Hardrive Mystery?

B

benherron.rrr

New member
Hey, was wondering if you could shine some light on this.

Before I start I don't have a clue about how the inner workings of a computer work.

I think I'm at a stage where I really need to think about getting separate drives to record onto, keep OS and plugs etc, and Vi sample libraries.

Here is the mystery. I know My dell xps 8100 has 2 card drive bays, so I was planning on getting another internal hardrive. When I opened up the hood I noticed that both bays, or what i presume are the hardrives based on the manual diagrams and the little knowledge i have, were in use. I have a single 1.5tb drive, or thats what my system has led me to believe. I noticed both drives are connected to each other. . . so whats going on here? If there are indeed two separate drives merged into 1 could I not separate them into two drives? I have read about partitioning drives to make them more efficient, But I don't really know how to do that and how difficult it is. I know I need to sort out my space so that I'm not putting so much stress on the drive. I don't really know what I can do, just need the cheapest solution possible. Ive just bought EW pianos and symphonic orchestra so money is tight, and with the size of these library, I'm going to need to get it right.

Help!!!!
 
benherron.rrr said:
Hey, was wondering if you could shine some light on this.

Before I start I don't have a clue about how the inner workings of a computer work.

I think I'm at a stage where I really need to think about getting separate drives to record onto, keep OS and plugs etc, and Vi sample libraries.

Here is the mystery. I know My dell xps 8100 has 2 card drive bays, so I was planning on getting another internal hardrive. When I opened up the hood I noticed that both bays, or what i presume are the hardrives based on the manual diagrams and the little knowledge i have, were in use. I have a single 1.5tb drive, or thats what my system has led me to believe. I noticed both drives are connected to each other. . . so whats going on here? If there are indeed two separate drives merged into 1 could I not separate them into two drives? I have read about partitioning drives to make them more efficient, But I don't really know how to do that and how difficult it is. I know I need to sort out my space so that I'm not putting so much stress on the drive. I don't really know what I can do, just need the cheapest solution possible. Ive just bought EW pianos and symphonic orchestra so money is tight, and with the size of these library, I'm going to need to get it right.

Help!!!!
Click to expand...

First, find out if your computer actually have RAID drives.
 
Are you sure one drive isn't your DVD drive?? Connected together?? Hmm, I'm thinking that's the power cable. Are there other cables going to each unit? Sounds to me like you have one hard drive and one dvd drive.

Can you post a pic?
 
Chili said:
Are you sure one drive isn't your DVD drive?? Connected together?? Hmm, I'm thinking that's the power cable. Are there other cables going to each unit? Sounds to me like you have one hard drive and one dvd drive.

Can you post a pic?
Click to expand...

I will post a pic when I get in from work. If By DVD drive your talking about the drive where I put CD's in than no. I know I was looking at the service manual, to see where the hard drive went and how to disconnect it and everything and from looking at the diagrams I was a bit confused as to why there was something where the empty bay should be.
 
First, Google is your friend. Second, right click on 'My Computer', click on 'Manage', and then click on 'Disk Management'. All will be answered, if you know the right questions to ask.
 
Google is why I'm confused!

Documentation

This shows where the hard rives are in my computer (in the diagram no 3 is primary and 2 is secondary) The secondary drive space is where I thought I could put a new hard drive

Documentation

And this document shows how to remove the hard drive (better view)

what I find strange is that both bays are full. the primary drive is connected to the secondary (although I'm sure this is for power). When I bought the computer I only selected 1, 1.5 TB drive. I'm confused as to why there are clearly 2 drives, they both look exactly the same.

From reading the forum where I got this info, I was under the impression that the second bay is supposed to be empty? (the thread is here in case it helps) XPS 8100 install second hard drive - Desktop General Hardware Forum - Desktop - Dell Community

When I looked into computer management, like you said. I have a number of drives attached, I can account for the others as being external drives I have plugged in (usb flash drives etc) But only one of those drives listed is internal. This drive (disk 0) has 3 partitions, Healthy (OEM) 86MB, Recovery 9.61GB and OS 1182.64GB. What I gather here is that I have two physical internal hard drives but are merged into 1. What I want to know is if I can separate these out in any way so that, I can make the load of recalling and recording audio a little less taxing.
 
benherron.rrr said:
What I want to know is if I can separate these out in any way so that, I can make the load of recalling and recording audio a little less taxing.
Click to expand...

You should be able to. Best advice is to post a picture. Can you see what kind of drives they are? (ie model number to determind the type and size.)
 
PDP said:
You should be able to. Best advice is to post a picture. Can you see what kind of drives they are? (ie model number to determind the type and size.)
Click to expand...

The only thing i can see is that they are black, Im a little wary about taking them out. But I may find time do do so tomorrow, ive got some very important things on here that I can't afford to lose. . . untill tomorrow.
 
Hey Guys

I can't upload a picture because a) the quality is bad and you can hardly see anything and b) I cant get them off my phone to my computer.

Ok, I was right there are 2 seperate hard drives, both connected by the same loom of powercables, there is a third plug on this loom but its in the position of where another DVD drive would go, each HD has it's own SATA connection to the motherboard, there is a spare plug, so I could get a third HD but there is no where to put it.

Both Hard Drives are Western Digita WD Caviar Blue 640GB Product code is: WD6400AAKS.

What would be great is if I could seperate these both out, so that 1 would be used for Windows 7, all plugins, software as well as misc Items. the other for my samples for EW Pianos and symphonic orchestra and BFD2 aswell as being the recording drive.

Can I do this? and how. . . . ??? I persume it's not going to be easy.
 
This is new territory for me. I'm guessing here, but if they are raided together as one drive, the O/S files and other programs might have files and folders spread across both drives. Would you be able to format the drives and rebuild everything??
 
Chili said:
This is new territory for me. I'm guessing here, but if they are raided together as one drive, the O/S files and other programs might have files and folders spread across both drives. Would you be able to format the drives and rebuild everything??
Click to expand...

Ahh ok. Well Im sitting on a basket of new software, I was planning on putting all my important files on external drives and then restoring my computer so I can install everything fresh. So that is possible if I new how to do the process of splitting them up.
 
Yeah. When reloading windows, it should give you the option to format drives, set partitions, etc. This is for windows, right?? lol.
 
These are set up as raid drives this was common practice for Dell stuff for a while. Its not the best form of RAID ie its not coppying the same data on both discs but treating two disks as one so if a disk fails you are screwed...
These drives are set up in bios and is not a straightforward job to set them up as separate drives - but it can be done..
Before you do anything back up all your existing data on an external drive
 
If it were me, I'd probably consider:
- leaving the primary drive how it is (two in a RAID array);
- add a new drive.

I suspect you could put an additional drive in place of the second optical drive, where you probably don't have anything anyway. If you want more (or that won't work), you could hook up an external eSATA drive. You cold also replace the first optical drive, though then you won't have any optical drive at all, unless you get an external one or put the one you have into an external enclosure.
 
Chili said:
Yeah. When reloading windows, it should give you the option to format drives, set partitions, etc. This is for windows, right?? lol.
Click to expand...

I can't quite remember, I don't want to go through the process before I know exactly how I am going to set everything up.

bruiser1964 said:
These are set up as raid drives this was common practice for Dell stuff for a while. Its not the best form of RAID ie its not coppying the same data on both discs but treating two disks as one so if a disk fails you are screwed...
These drives are set up in bios and is not a straightforward job to set them up as separate drives - but it can be done..
Before you do anything back up all your existing data on an external drive
Click to expand...

I didn't think it would be a hard thing to do, it would just be cheaper for me to do it this way. . . every penny counts ya know. :) Although not being all too smart when it comes to computers If its too difficult it may be better me considering ther options.

sjjohnston said:
If it were me, I'd probably consider:
- leaving the primary drive how it is (two in a RAID array);
- add a new drive.

I suspect you could put an additional drive in place of the second optical drive, where you probably don't have anything anyway. If you want more (or that won't work), you could hook up an external eSATA drive. You cold also replace the first optical drive, though then you won't have any optical drive at all, unless you get an external one or put the one you have into an external enclosure.
Click to expand...

My first idea was to purchase an external eSATA drive, but my main concern is saving money. I was thinking about putting one elsewhere in my computer but couldn't see/ find anywhere suitable.

Is partitioning any better, say if I created a partition for samples and one for audio?
 
benherron.rrr said:
Is partitioning any better, say if I created a partition for samples and one for audio?
Click to expand...
My understanding is that using two partitions on the same physical drive doesn't really accomplish anything useful in this application. You're still forcing one drive to do all the reading and writing. It might actually make it worse, as the sample and audio files might wind up physically further apart than they otherwise would have been.
 
Sorry I have not replied earlier, I'm not in this forum as much as I used to be.

What is interesting to me is that I work with Dell computers all the time, but I have never run across a Dell that was set up with a RAID right from the factory. Not that this isn't possible; in fact it sounds exactly what you have. But its not typical for Dell.

In theory there is a way you could get rid of your RAID and keep your current setup, but it would require that you either buy or borrow a third drive that you could erase. A drive imaging program like Ghost will read a RAID as a single drive. You could copy the RAID image to this third single drive (assuming it has enough room to fit). Then you would want to install this drive temporarily as your boot drive and make sure it works properly. Then if you had just borrowed the third drive you could again copy the image back to one of your two drives, which would destroy the RAID image. Again, you need to be sure there is enough room to fit on a 640 gig drive. Finally you would re-format your second drive and use it as a data drive or whatever.
 
Maybe it's a UK thing... My Gf's 2 year old Dell and one I bought off Ebay are both factory installed raid - One of the drives on my gf's fai led and it was a pain to sort because the BIOS is not easy to navigate.
 
Please post a photo of the inside of your PC and/or give the exact name and model name of your computer. Ideally the service tag if it's a dell. Then I think I could help a lot.
 
RWhite said:
Sorry I have not replied earlier, I'm not in this forum as much as I used to be.

What is interesting to me is that I work with Dell computers all the time, but I have never run across a Dell that was set up with a RAID right from the factory. Not that this isn't possible; in fact it sounds exactly what you have. But its not typical for Dell.

In theory there is a way you could get rid of your RAID and keep your current setup, but it would require that you either buy or borrow a third drive that you could erase. A drive imaging program like Ghost will read a RAID as a single drive. You could copy the RAID image to this third single drive (assuming it has enough room to fit). Then you would want to install this drive temporarily as your boot drive and make sure it works properly. Then if you had just borrowed the third drive you could again copy the image back to one of your two drives, which would destroy the RAID image. Again, you need to be sure there is enough room to fit on a 640 gig drive. Finally you would re-format your second drive and use it as a data drive or whatever.
Click to expand...

. . . assuming you mean internal drive? I could do that with an external, but I ould have to buy a new internal drive to do that..

shutupandshave said:
Please post a photo of the inside of your PC and/or give the exact name and model name of your computer. Ideally the service tag if it's a dell. Then I think I could help a lot.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I can do now I have more time on my hands. What do you mean by "exact name and model"? It's a Dell studio XPS 8100 if that is what you mean. What would you need the service tag for?
 
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