Wierd proble with IDE and SATA Drives

[cordog]

Just bought a WD Raptor 36.7 GB drive to store the O.S. and games for faster loading. I installed Windows XP on the Raptor. I also have a 120 Gig IDE drive for other storage. My problem is, when I install a program such as, Office XP, Ad-Aware, and other programs and applications, my Raptor is decreasing in size. But my IDE is barely being filled up.

But the IDE does go down in size if I store pictures, music, and other documents on it. But If I store a program, the SATA goes down and not the IDE. Is this normal. If so, what happens when I run out of space on the SATA Raptor? Does it switch over to the D: to start storing programs?
Been working on this for days. Need help.

Thanks

 

[Liquidlen]

Welcome to Techspot !
What you describe is perfectly normal.
When you load Any files to your Comp YOU decide where to put them generally speaking.
So as you put Apps on your SATA the amount of Free space will reduce ( go down). Same on the IDE drive.
There are some Apps that automatically add files as you go along, eg. IE will add Temp Internet Pages,Outlook adds Emails,MS Office (amongst many other Apps)will add files to your My Documents folder automatically.
You can Move some of these folders to your IDE drive .(This is a Good idea)
But ultimately it is up to you to keep the Free space on your O/S drive to an Optimum level by cleaning house regularly.

 

[cordog]

Thanks for the reply Liquidlen. Sorry, this is my first SATA drive. I guess this is the way it is, I thought it would act differently. Thanks for answering a noob question.

Another question is that when I go into Windows Disk Management it says my D: (IDE) drive is on Disk 0 and my C: (SATA) drive is on Disk 1. Does this affect anything and is normal? When I installed my O.S. I unplugged my IDE and installed everything on my SATA. Then I plugged the IDE back in and formatted that. But shouldn't the first drive I plug in and format/load Windows be defaulted to C: Disk 0. Not C: Disk 1?

Thanks.

 

[Rick]

For Windows, the relationship between Disk 0 / Disk 1 and C: / D: is not really relavant. So you are fine.

Disk 0/1 points to the physical location of the disk. The drive letter C: is what Windows really pays attention to.

 

[Lord_Badmagic]

Help required.

I don’t like butting in to someone else’s thread but the question I have is related to the original posters question.

I am running 2x74 GB Raptors in RAID 0 (Drive C:\) and I am running out of space so I intend to buy an additional IDE drive (Drive E:\) for storage as I only have 2 SATA ports in my system.

The question I have is this.

The primary need for the HDD is plain old fashioned storage but can I also install applications such as games, MS Office, MX Dreamweaver, Anti-Virus and Firewall to run from the non primary IDE drive where my O/S runs from the primary SATA setup?

Also if I can could you also tell me if I should expect any problems such as Anti-virus won’t function correctly or games won’t start stuff like that.

I have a situation going on with a local company where they are offering me a good deal on a “Maxtor 300GB ATA-133 16MB Cache” for £70/$140* on the condition I let them know by Wednesday morning** so the speedier the response the more I would appreciate it.

*
Most other places are charging between £100-150/$200-300 for the same drive.

**
Approximately 33-36 hours from now.

Specs if required.

O/S: Win XP Pro SP2
CPU: AMD 64 FX-53
HDD: 148 GB WD Raptors (2x74GB RAID 0)
RAM: 1024 Mb 4000 DDR (2x512)

 

[Liquidlen]

Applications almost always can run from any drive on your system.
Some may have to write some operational files(common) to the O/S or C:\ but it doesn't matter.
You may find some reduced speed between apps that are installed on your RAID array to IDE, but that should be minimal.
I would take the deal if you get full warrantee.