Trial install. Issues.

Had a go at installing WIN7. Interesting things happened. This I should say is on my existing XP system. I was intending to install on a spare SATA drive.

Anyway first attempt was with both SATA and IDE drives plugged in, Went for Custom install to specify the drive I wanted (the 2nd SATA one). Up to that stage went ok (this was with XP loaded in background), initially got going with install but then it asked for drivers for the M/B.. These I could not install via a DVD as with the XP O/S running the drivers kept wanting to install to the 'c' drive. So that stopped first attempt.

2nd go was with the 'c' drive unplugged but then the install wanted to default to installing on the IDE drive. So that stopped 2nd attempt.

3rd go was with the IDE and 'c' SATA drive unplugged but then install did not see any drive at all. That stopped 3rd attempt.

4th go was with both SATA drives unplugged and just the IDE left connected, that seemed to be working as this time it did not ask for M/B drivers, I can only assume this was due to it being an IDE drive. However it bombed out before completing install but that was a software issue on the CD.

So in conclusion it seems as if it could be a problem trying to install the O/S on a completely different SATA drive whilst retaining another O/S on another SATA drive. you'd no doubt get around this by just installing the two O/S's on a single drive which ultimately is what I plan to do anyway. Just that my existing drives are not large enough on their own to hold two O/S's

Well, for one thing the IDE drive is throwing a "monkey wrench" into the works.

I would use it only as a storage drive myself, or sell it.

Is this the new system or the old one? Since I don't use a RAID setup I always set the SATA drives in the BIOS to AHCI setting, not IDE. If you have a very old motherboard you may not be able to do this though.

Unplug all the drives except for the one you want to install Windows 7 on and try it and see what happens.

What Nibiru2012 said. Best if win7 sees one drive only.

Also, Make sure of the master/slave settings are correct if you go with IDE. (set as master on the master connector on the cable}

The old system. Only one IDE HDD. Not a big issue. Just thought you guys would be interested to hear what happened. I was just killing time.
Got the XP back up running and happy so not fussed.
All I lost was the stuff on the ide which carbonite is restoring as we speak.

Mychael, when you get this system finalized, are you going to have 7 on one drive, and XP on the other? I'm an enthusiast, as you apparently are, one thing I wonder about with this install, though. Wouldn't it be better if you had matched drives, either SATA or IDE? Seems like mixing drives up might cause problems. I don't know this beyond all doubts, but from what I've read on this forum and elsewhere, it's best to run one or the other. I realize you are still preparing, what is it that you're planning on running, if you've reached that decision yet?

No it will be matched drives on the new system. The only reason I was trying it on the IDE is for some reason it would not see the SATA drives for an install.

I'll probably go for a similer set-up to what I have now, just bigger. WD velociraptor drives in mirror RAID with a 2TB IDE for other files.
I thought about SSD for the O/S but for what they cost I can get larger WD drives with 5yr warranty on them.

In fact now HDD drives are getting so much cheaper I might even be able to afford all SATA drives for both O/S and other data.

My 750GB Caviar Black cost only $79, free shipping, from Newegg. It carries a 5 year warranty with it, too. I'm totally satisfied with it. I ordered a box last night to place my old drive (a 320GB Caviar Blue) in. I plan to use this drive for Linux Mint 8 and Ubuntu 9.10 (the 10.04 Beta is out, but in my opinion, it's not road ready yet. The reason I'm doing this is so that Linux's bootloader (GRUB) won't overwrite Windows, and it also gives me that much more room for Windows. What I'll have to learn is how to boot from a second drive, I've never done that before. The drive will be installed in a box, and will plug into my computer by USB. Is this the same thing as a RAID configuration?

No, RAID comes in various configurations. The two I know about are 'striped' and 'mirrored'.. In striping you have two SATA drives connected and the RAID treats them as one and writes across both. This gives the fastest possible read/write access times, the downside is the same as if you only had one HDD, if one goes down it grinds to a halt as data (including the O/S) is spread across the two drives.

Mirroring which is what I had until Mint 5 broke it still uses two SATA drives but puts identical data on both, it's no slower then a single HDD setup but allows you to continue if one drive dies. You then just install a replacement HDD to replace the dead one and the other drive will copy back across till all data again matches and away you go again.

Nope, not even close.

This is from Wikipedia:
RAID, an acronym for redundant array of independent disks, is a technology that allows high levels of storage reliability from low-cost and less reliable PC-class disk-drive components, via the technique of arranging the devices into arrays for redundancy. This concept was first defined by David A. Patterson, Garth A. Gibson, and Randy Katz at the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 as redundant array of inexpensive disks.[1] Marketers representing industry RAID manufacturers later reinvented the term to describe a redundant array of independent disks as a means of dissociating a low-cost expectation from RAID technology.[2]

RAID is now used as an umbrella term for computer data storage schemes that can divide and replicate data among multiple hard disk drives. The different schemes/architectures are named by the word RAID followed by a number, as in RAID 0, RAID 1, etc. RAID's various designs involve two key design goals: increase data reliability and/or increase input/output performance. When multiple physical disks are set up to use RAID technology, they are said to be in a RAID array[3]. This array distributes data across multiple disks, but the array is seen by the computer user and operating system as one single disk. RAID can be set up to serve several different purposes.

To read the rest of the article, go HERE

Better have a couple of beers while reading it! It is quite thorough.

I read that article last night, it makes it look like a low class way to go, considering that the article points out using low cost & less reliable components. Plus, the technology is 23 years old, I doubt SATA drives were being built at that time. Consumers were probably still on 128MB (64MB x2) RAM at that time, if that much.