Calling all computer savvy members!

[DavidEccleston]

For software from a large vendor with limited number of installations, there is usually a way to deactivate/uninstall and reclaim an install.

[HDNitehawk]

One of my other concerns is if the Photoshop & Lightroom I just bought will be able to be transferred onto the new hard drive or if it will think I am trying to put it on a second computer and not allow it!

That will not be a problem. You can even have photoshop on diffrent machines, you just aren't supposed to use photoshop on both machines at once.





Reading Jan's comments and directions he would have me worried to.

[DavidEccleston]

Adobe

[Sheiky]

Reading Jan's comments and directions he would have me worried to.

Haha...it's because I asked myself the question "what could go wrong?" What problems could she run into?


If I'd do that every time I'm about to drive a car or jump onto my mountainbike....hmm...[A]

One of my other concerns is if the Photoshop & Lightroom I just bought will be able to be transferred onto the new hard drive or if it will think I am trying to put it on a second computer and not allow it!

That will not be a problem. You can even have photoshop on different machines, you just aren't supposed to use photoshop on both machines at once.

Also copying the Lightroom catalogue is very easy. I wouldn't try to copy program files though. Just re-instal the programs.

[HDNitehawk]

[View:http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/100/1008779.html]


Adobe's website instructions

[Sheiky]

Alright Denise, I googled around a bit. And the hard drive you bought should be alright to use as a primairy disk. However it will be slower than a faster running disk. How much? I'm not entirely sure. If you want, I could test it on my brothers pc.


I tested on my own pc, but I'm using multiple drives in raid, so that's not really a good comparison.


So as far as I'm concerned you're not going to have major trouble when replacing your current hard drive.


The only thing you might need to do is change the boot-order in bios (if it isn't already so) to boot from DVD first if you want to install windows again. Afterwards you can change the order again. (having the hard drive to boot first usually decreases the boot up time, which is good)

[ddt0725]

Thanks so much everyone for the info on the hard drive and adobe!!! This is all very helpful! Especially not knowing that I needed to deactivate and reactivate the adobe product.


I guess I should have done more research before buying this hard drive though. It

[Chris White]

Denise,


I think your primary issues have been addressed. It definitely sounds like the hard-drive, I would minimize usage until you actually make the swap or it could die completely taking all you unbacked up files to it's grave. I would use it's last resources backing up anything of value to you that you do not have a current backup copy of. In addition, if you have any sensitive personal information (taxes, bank/investment accounts, Quicken, etc.) you want to destroy the old hard-drive -- the disk(s) -- before discarding it.


I have a Dell XPS which is about the same age as your machine (I think, time goes too quickly [*-)]). It came with Vista Ultimate (what an oversell that was![][]) with the XP UPGRADE option. I say upgrade loudly since Microsoft in their wisdom realized (without admitting it, of course) that Vista was a very poor OS, (remember ME, the first Vista?). On business and top-end systems they offered the option of the XP Professional upgrade (they called it a downgrade).


Now that I have got that out of my system, I like XP Pro and have not gone to windows 7 on this machine -- it does what I want well. (I do have it on my new laptop and it is definitely an upgrade from Vista.) I do not know if the problem is XP or my BIOS, but the largest harddrive I can use is 1TB. I would check to make sure your machine can recognize a 2TB hard-drive before you start "surgery". That would not put a big grin on your faces if you get it back together and it will not start, just sayin'. You want to make sure you can put a 2TB as your main drive before you start.


Good luck,


Chris

[ddt0725]

Oh goodness, I sure hope it can take 2TB! I guess I have to figure out how to find out without the only way being to try it!


And yes, I sure do remember Windows ME! I had that before I went to Vista so my whole computer experience has been quite the rocky adventure! Sometimes, it

[Sheiky]

I didn't really know what to look for and this sounded like it would be alot faster than what I had originally but I guess not.

I didn't say that [] This drive might be faster than your current drive. I have done some testing on my drives and while my 2TB Samsung Green Disk (very much the same) is quite full it is actually not that slow. The read and write speeds aren't bad at all. Only a little slower than the regular disks.


The biggest difference is in the disks access times. (Access time is the time delay or<span style="color: #000000;"] latency between a request to an electronic system, and the access being completed or the requested data returned)


The 7200RPM disk had an average access time of 11.7ms while the 5400RPM disk had 15.6ms. This causes the disk to appear slower. Programs take a little longer to load etc.


For comparison, my SSD has an average access time of 0.17ms.Oh and don't forget that my regular disks are like a year newer than the green disk.

I hope it is not going to be so slow that it drives me crazy ...correction crazier!

Probably not. Your best bet is to just install it and try it out. If you feel that it doesn't do what you want it to do, you can always add a faster primairy drive and keep the 2TB drive for your photos and keep the operating system and your photos separate. That will improve speeds even more.


I'm a big fan of multiple disks so you have your sensitive photos "safer" when you have bugs, virusses and crashes. But obviously it is more expensive. A good choice for a primairy hard drive would be the Western Digital 1TB Caviar Blue disk. Or you could use an SSD for an even faster system.

I do not know if the problem is XP or my
BIOS, but the largest harddrive I can use is 1TB. I would check to make
sure your machine can recognize a 2TB hard-drive before you start
"surgery"

It's probably your bios. Windows XP service pack 2 and 3 support 2TB drives for sure. I googled a bit and noticed that more people have the same problem, which seems like a selfcaring problem in some occassions.