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Can I simply swap hard drives?

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Green Giant:


--- Quote from: leapinlew on September 25, 2007, 05:40:56 pm ---
--- Quote from: Green Giant on September 25, 2007, 05:23:56 pm ---
--- Quote from: MrMojoZ on September 25, 2007, 01:58:02 pm ---
--- Quote from: Green Giant on September 24, 2007, 05:52:55 pm ---Windows Server OS is the best at recognizing new hardware and new drivers without using the floppy. 

And in the few times it wants the floppy, you can just virtually connect a floppy through the network and upload the driver directly without an actual floppy drive.

--- End quote ---

He is talking about controllers that require F6 during the windows install. IE any SATA raid or newer SCSI controller. And once again we are not talking about installing devices while booted into windows, all these problems prevent the OS from loading at all. There is no hardware detection if you blue screen during bootup or if the OS installer can't see a HD.

--- End quote ---

Yes, I realize you are talking about the harddrive controllers which must be there to see the drive.  Like I said above, when this was a problem we just remotely connected a virtual floppy or cdrom, completely outside of any operating system, and dropped in the drivers necessary.

This probably is a problem with crappier servers like Dell and IBM, but with our hardware, we never had issues.

--- End quote ---

It sounds like your installing the OS using an installer program... like Smartstart. If so, I could see being able to use a virtual floppy, but heres the scenario

You swap the drive from one superior HP server to an equally good HP. The new HP was using an entirely different drive controller that was manually installed during the OS.

There... tell me how you swap drives and make that work. Since you never have issues, I'm curious how this accomplished.

--- End quote ---

Since you sound familiar with HP servers, you must know about iLO.  It operates completely separate of the other hardware assuming you aren't on a brand new prototype server.  Using that I can connect any number of devices and drop in any media format I want. 

But it sounds like you are talking about sata to scsi and the like.  That can't be done without putting in a new controller for the drive connectiong, and switching those out is a pain in the arse.  Most of the time the newer versions of a controller will recognize the older model, but when they don't smartstart can usually fix it with the correct drivers.

But when going scsi to scsi or sata to sata, it will usually work with Windows 2003 95% of the time.

leapinlew:


--- Quote from: Green Giant on September 25, 2007, 05:46:17 pm ---
--- Quote from: leapinlew on September 25, 2007, 05:40:56 pm ---
--- Quote from: Green Giant on September 25, 2007, 05:23:56 pm ---
--- Quote from: MrMojoZ on September 25, 2007, 01:58:02 pm ---
--- Quote from: Green Giant on September 24, 2007, 05:52:55 pm ---Windows Server OS is the best at recognizing new hardware and new drivers without using the floppy. 

And in the few times it wants the floppy, you can just virtually connect a floppy through the network and upload the driver directly without an actual floppy drive.

--- End quote ---

He is talking about controllers that require F6 during the windows install. IE any SATA raid or newer SCSI controller. And once again we are not talking about installing devices while booted into windows, all these problems prevent the OS from loading at all. There is no hardware detection if you blue screen during bootup or if the OS installer can't see a HD.

--- End quote ---

Yes, I realize you are talking about the harddrive controllers which must be there to see the drive.  Like I said above, when this was a problem we just remotely connected a virtual floppy or cdrom, completely outside of any operating system, and dropped in the drivers necessary.

This probably is a problem with crappier servers like Dell and IBM, but with our hardware, we never had issues.

--- End quote ---

It sounds like your installing the OS using an installer program... like Smartstart. If so, I could see being able to use a virtual floppy, but heres the scenario

You swap the drive from one superior HP server to an equally good HP. The new HP was using an entirely different drive controller that was manually installed during the OS.

There... tell me how you swap drives and make that work. Since you never have issues, I'm curious how this accomplished.

--- End quote ---

Since you sound familiar with HP servers, you must know about iLO.  It operates completely separate of the other hardware assuming you aren't on a brand new prototype server.  Using that I can connect any number of devices and drop in any media format I want. 

But it sounds like you are talking about sata to scsi and the like.  That can't be done without putting in a new controller for the drive connectiong, and switching those out is a pain in the arse.  Most of the time the newer versions of a controller will recognize the older model, but when they don't smartstart can usually fix it with the correct drivers.

--- End quote ---

I suppose we've now come to the end of the thread.
The question was: Can I simply swap hard drives?
The answer - maybe. Depends on your hardware.

Also - Picard rules.

More Cowbell:


--- Quote from: unclet on September 25, 2007, 02:01:12 pm ---I did not read this whole thread, but wanted to mention that I always have two drives in my cabinets.  The first hard drive (C:) is small and is used for the operating system only.  The second hard drive (D:) is where all of the emulator stuff is installed.  If I ever upgrade to a new computer (I did this twice so far), then I reformat the first hard drive (C:) and install the new operating system.  After the computer comes up fine then simply plug in the second hard drive (D:) and the drive is recognized and all emulator stuff exists and is configured already.

--- End quote ---

Actually, I like this idea a lot. I have a few small hard drives hanging around and this would make it easy to simply move a drive or copy it completely and set it up quickly and easily.

XyloSesame:


--- Quote from: leapinlew on September 25, 2007, 05:40:56 pm ---I'm curious how this accomplished.

--- End quote ---

I'm all for learning new tricks as I do this type of thing every day in a professional environment, but I lost interest in the "hows" and "whys" when everyone started talking about the possibility (and probability) of using third-party utilities. Add that to the fact that you would never have a clean machine after the OS redetects and installs new drivers, and I'm out.

Teach me a new trick that does things the right way, works outside of a sealed environment (iLO), and saves time. Not shortcuts that may or may not work and will certainly leave residual.


--- Quote from: leapinlew on September 25, 2007, 05:51:47 pm ---I suppose we've now come to the end of the thread.
The question was: Can I simply swap hard drives?
The answer - maybe. Depends on your hardware.

--- End quote ---

Again, Lew, well said.


Green Giant:


--- Quote from: leapinlew on September 25, 2007, 05:51:47 pm ---Also - Picard rules.

--- End quote ---

I knew we could come to an agreement.

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