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Upgrading OS vs Clean Install

mal - Sep 12, 2004

		mal		Sep 12, 2004
			Are there any significant disadvantages in performing an upgrade install compared to doing a clean istall?

		racketboy		Sep 12, 2004
			you leave lots of junk behind with an upgrade and there is more possibilities for something going wrong. Plus there's just the nice feeling of having a fresh install that is similar to new-car-smell I would do a clean install unless you have a really good reason not too.

		Alexvrb		Sep 12, 2004
			For most people I'd recommend a clean install. I just hate spending ages getting everything together, and am perfectly capable of cleaning my computer up without trashing everything and starting over on a semi-regular basis. So if I had to, I would just upgrade. Any particular reason why you'd move from 2k to XP?

		mal		Sep 12, 2004
			I'm not that keen on installing/configuring apps again. Alexvrb - I'm just wondering if my HD related failures are somehow OS related. shrug

Alexvrb

Sep 12, 2004

	
	
		
		
			Originally posted by mal@Sep 13, 2004 @ 04:28 AM



 I'm not that keen on installing/configuring apps again.



Alexvrb - I'm just wondering if my HD related failures are somehow OS related. *shrug*

I'm not aware of any issues with 2k and HD failure. More likely, you just aren't lucky. HDs break, although it is possible that other things stressed it, like unreliable power or high temperatures. But that sort of thing should be relatively obvious, whereas internal problems with your drive might not be (unless SMART yells at you in advance).

Anyway, upgrading wouldn't *hurt*... unless your HD hiccups during the install. Bleh.

		mal		Sep 12, 2004
			AFAICT the HDs themselves are fine - they just like to forget that they've got partitions and data on them. At first I thought it may have been to do with the fact that the drives were too hot, so I spaced them a bit better. I also thought that overclocking may have had something to do with it - until I moved one to another machine that was running at stock speed and it failed. <_< I don't think it's the same drive that's gone more than once so either I've had a bad batch of drives - and I bought them over a period of several months - or perhaps it's OS related... It could always be something completely different.

		lordofduct		Sep 13, 2004
			are they MAXTOR... hehe, i hate maxtor drives

		mal		Sep 13, 2004
			No, they're Seagates. Both drives that I've had issues with have been 200GB 7200.7 parallel ATA drives. If nothing else I'm good at backing up my data these days.

		racketboy		Sep 13, 2004
			do you have fans running over the drives? not required, but it's nice for fast, hot drives

		mal		Sep 13, 2004
			The PC that's running stock speeds has both a 120mm exhast fan at the back of the case and a second (higher speed) 120mm fan for intake at the front just behind the HDs. There's plenty of air running over them but it hasn't seemed to have helped. :/ I was planning on slowing it somewhat eventually, but I haven't got around to it yet.

		Alexvrb		Sep 13, 2004
			They don't really benefit after a certain point, Racket. I just wanted to make sure they weren't being packed together and frying. Also, since he's tried them in different (otherwise OK) machines, I'd suspect the drives just have what we call in the computer business "SUCK TEH CACK". It's a technical term, I won't get into it here. Suffice it to say that your best bet is replacing the drives (you could also try and get warranty service, but good luck). I mean HDs aren't that much anymore, but it is inconvenient. Although I did see a nice 250GB 7k250 for around $160. Although your prices aren't going to be so good, from what I've seen from stores down under.

		Krelian		Sep 14, 2004
			Have you run DFT on them? http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm... ~Krelian P.S.: Ooooohh, the new version supports SATAs. P.P.S.: I'd vote clean too, nothing can eliminate the free radicals of an OS upgrade like installing clean.

		Pyrite		Sep 14, 2004
			I also have a Seagate HD (120GB) and it has 4 partitions running on win2k/win98se for more than 7 months with this drive and I´ve yet to run by any problems. The only time I had those kind of problems you described was when I tried a funky HD which had a bunch of bad sectors. Clean install is always better specially if you are having problems.

		Alexvrb		Sep 14, 2004
			Yeah, you should run a drive fitness test on them for sure. But have you already run a surface scan on them? Once you start getting bad sectors, its generally all downhill.