Question for you Computer experts out there
 

Guys,

I'm going to clone my current 20GB hard drive in my PC (which is my secondary computer, btw) to a new much larger 120GB hard drive. My tower is equipped to handle another hard drive but the clips for the drive bay are too short to hold the drive so until I can get new clips I have to stick to a single hard drive. My question is this: While I'm cloning the old drive to the new drive do I need to mount the second hard drive firmly in the tower in order to be able ground it or will it suffice to simply lay the drive in the bay? Or is the drive even grounded at all to the tower normally?

I'm planning to do this tonight so I need your expert opinions asap.

Thanks guys.

You can just lay the drive in the bay, just make sure it's stable and won't short anything out or fall over. I have slices of electrostatic foam I use for this, but that's wholly uneccesary, and I only mention it because I like typing the work 'electrostatic.'

Thanks Thom. I wasn't sure if I could just lay it in there or not. The tower is already open and I was about to just lay the drive in there and thought "hmm, maybe I should ask somebody if this is such a good idea."

Scott,

You can just lay the drive in until you can mount it properly but why the clone if you don't mind me asking? Do you need more space, why not just use the 120 gig as a data drive and keep your operating system on the main (c: drive). Just my opinion.

Well, here's the deal. I've got darn near 20 GB worth of programs on that drive. Almost everything on it is a program. I know I'm not an expert but don't the programs need to be on the same drive as the operating system?

The main program files should be on the primary drive but I find it hard to believe that all are essential program files. Have you cleaned up what you are not using? Uninstalling garbage that was installed by the manufacturer (you have a Dell, right?)
You would be surprised what you 'll find on there.

My primary drive is a 150 gig so I understand the need but my program files folder amounts to 4 gigs and windows is 2.5 gigs and that is with many, many programs installed, the rest is data.

Also, I recommend downloading Crap Cleaner, (http://www.ccleaner.com/) this will remove and repair much of the unnecessary garbage that has been sitting there.

Interesting. Is there some sort of issue with a clone I don't know about?

Open ended question and I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong but from my experience, a cloned drive can have difficulty recognizing hardware. I am sure the software they have running now is probably much better now then a few years ago. What are using to clone the drive, Norton Ghost??

A fresh install is always a better choice in my opinion as long as you have the software that you need. Kind of like the while your in there rule when working on the P-car.

The idea behind the clone in my opinion is for setting up multiple machines with the same hardware, you install everything on one and then clone the drives and every machine has the exact same O/S and programs.

Heck, give it shot and if it works great, if it doesn't you can do clean install and your exisitng drive will still be fine.

We clone hard drives all the time. On a healthy drive, we have no issues. Norton Ghost even fixes one MBR issue and we will clone a hard drive back and forth to fix the problem.

Dave

Well...it's being done as we speak.

Done. Everything works great.

Thanks everyone.