[PapaG39]

I presently have a western digital Raptor 74 GB hard drive.
I just went through a nasty trogan problem & it looks like I am going to have to eventually just zero things out & reinstall XP Pro.

My hard drive is always running just about full because il2 and il2 Mat manager & all the mods, skins campaigns etc take up a lot of room.

I also like the Brothers in arms & Call of duty type games and I am always putting one game on & then uninstalling it before I can install another game.

I was thinking (bad thing to do) that While I have to zero the hard drive & loose everything anyway that I may as well buy the new western digital 300gb VelociRapter
10000RPM & then I can put all of my shooter games on it.

What I was wondering was: Can I just have this 80 gb hard drive and only have the il2 game on it... and could I switch back & forth between hard drives?

would that be more problem then its worth or would that be a good thing to do?

I could have my XP Pro plus all of the xp work & different software on the 300gb hard drive & just have XP Pro & il2 only on the 74 gb hard drive..

I am a bit computer challenged so what makes since to me may well not be a good working situation in reality.

[Gumpy]

You can pull your old Raptor 74 GB hard drive out, put in a new hard drive,then go to like to a Best Buy store and get a Thermaltake - SATA Hard Drive Docking Station with eSATA and USB Connection or something like it, and make your old hard drive into a external.You can put whatever you want on it I have 3 different IL2 installations on external hard drives and they run fine.

[agracier]

You can pull your old Raptor 74 GB hard drive out, put in a new hard drive,then go to like to a Best Buy store and get a Thermaltake - SATA Hard Drive Docking Station with eSATA and USB Connection or something like it, and make your old hard drive into a external.You can put whatever you want on it I have 3 different IL2 installations on external hard drives and they run fine.

I've never been able to run any copies of Il-2 on external hard drives. is there anything that needs to be done to make them playable from an external?

[Gumpy]

Well I'm not sure,the only thing I did different was to rename them, for instance IL2-1946,1 and IL2-1946,2 Ive never had a problem running them from my externals.I have three externals with one or two copies of the game on each of them.

[fabianfred]

grumpy seems to have a docking station which is probably linked by SATA
the externals which connect by a USB plug are no good for running a game from... too slow a connection

[VF101hawk]

Keep your hd inside and use it as a backup for programs download etc. format your new drive and have it partionated into minimum to drives(c-d) have win xp on the c size about 50gb. and the rest you have your games on (d)
That way atleast il2 wont need to reinstall if you need to reinstall win xp again!

[agracier]

grumpy seems to have a docking station which is probably linked by SATA
the externals which connect by a USB plug are no good for running a game from... too slow a connection

well then, I'll have to see about a docking station then ... thanks for the tip.

[fabianfred]

Docking stations are only necessary for those who want to 'Hot swap' hard drives without turning off the computer...
Normally a computer will have room for at least two or three drives inside its case...

keep il2 on the 74GB drive and make a couple of partitions in the big new one.......

one for C drive and your XP install

one for other stuff

one for a backup copy of your ubi/il2

[VF101hawk]

Dont see the point in using the old slow hard drive to have the game running of. as it would run much faster on the new drive under the D:/.
And rather use the old hard drive to have a copy of the IL2 .
Id have 3 patitions atleast on the new drive. C:/-D:/ and E:/
C=Winxp size aprox 50 gb. D= Games size around 2-300gb and finally the E= Downloads.mp3. and other stuff that you also may have a backup of on the old drive.
This way you can defragment the hard drive partitions fast and only the one you need to defragment you use the last partition as this is usually on the inner end of the plates and therefor have the least performance of the entire disk.

If you havent tried it the google smartdefrag its a free program that defragments your harddrive and you can choose wich and what partitions to defragment. the more often you do it the faster it is done. i myself do it every time ive done any changes like deleting or adding stuff. so usually its done in minutes.

In my opinion your old slow hard drive is only usable as a backup for or to have stuff you arent running on the computer.

but hey.. do a test and clock the loding times. if you buy a new good drive i would be suprized if the game loads faster from the old drive!

Anyhow good luck!

[Jaymom]

grumpy seems to have a docking station which is probably linked by SATA
the externals which connect by a USB plug are no good for running a game from... too slow a connection

This quote is not true. I have a WD external hard drive connected to my computer via a USB plug that I bought just for storage but IL-2 plays off from it just as good as IL-2 does on my internal hard drive. Both run with frame rates between a low of the mid 30's to a high in the 70's. While flying in IL-2 there is no way of telling which hard drive I am on.

Jaymom

[skyomish]

I would want to know does your M\B support SATA?
If so why not put TWO H\D in your case ? The prices of H\D are down now and BUY two
install them and your good to go.

[PapaG39]

Thanks for all of the good advice. I am putting it all together in my mind. The simpler the better...lol...
I have a bit more $$$ to save so I plan to get a new HD soon.

Man, I really hate to wipe the hard drive & start all over again. re doing all of those drivers, sound setups etc is really a pain.

[agracier]

Man, I really hate to wipe the hard drive & start all over again. re doing all of those drivers, sound setups etc is really a pain.

I think I've had to do that an average of once a year all these past years ... after a while it's no biggie, you get used to it. And afterwards your PC will work faster and save a lot of space as well.

[fastforward]

Hello.
I am the new one for the site. I have purchased Dell Inspiron 15 Laptop. I have 250 Gb drive and it has 3 part. I want to make more for better sharing and access of of data. How can I make it. Also let me know how can I recover original partition. Is it required to format all the drives for that.