Specific MP (Early '08) HD install questions

[sturob]

Two quick questions.

First, if I'm planning on installing 2 more HDs in my MP (I went with Spinpoint F1), do I need to worry about the master/slave jumper positions? I'm assuming that I won't.

Second, what's the easiest way to subordinate my stock drive? I was thinking that I'd use one of the F1 drives as a boot, one as the Time Machine, and turn the stock drive into BootCamp. Drag-and-drop the drive, and then choose the new drive as the boot drive? Or . . . ?

I was not going to mess with RAID.

Thanks,

Stuart

 

[Lurgen]

SATA drives don't have master/slave jumper settings, so no need to worry about that one.

Personally, I'm planning on storing my 320GB drive somewhere safe pretty much untouched. If I have to send it off for maintenance I'll put the stock drive back in, make sure the problem is still present, then let them take the machine. I don't trust Apple (or anyone for that matter!) with my data.

 

[elvisizer]

Second, what's the easiest way to subordinate my stock drive? I was thinking that I'd use one of the F1 drives as a boot, one as the Time Machine, and turn the stock drive into BootCamp. Drag-and-drop the drive, and then choose the new drive as the boot drive? Or . . . ?

Thanks,

Stuart

here's what i'd do in that situation. when the mac shows up, plug it in and boot it to make sure it's functional. don't bother with anything other than a boot. then, shut it down and pull the original boot drive. put the drive you want to boot from in. boot from the installation DVD that came with the mac and install onto the drive you actually want to boot from. then put the other drives back in and format them however you want.
even if I wasn't planning on replacing the boot drive, i'd still format it and install from the DVD. I've seen too many macs act weird out of the box until the OS has been reinstalled.
Of course, i've been a mac tech for over ten years now, so it could just be that i'm dealing with a huge sample size . . .

 

[sturob]

Huh. I read the online manual at samsung.com for the drive and there's a whole page on jumper settings. For SATA. So, whatever. I trust what you say . . . maybe Samsung just whole-hog translated some Korean document or something. Wacky.

Second, how'll that work if I had some software pre-installed? Can I just shift the software over to the new disk?

Sounds like a plan, though: boot off the DVD (hold down mouse button?) and install on the new drive . . . cool.

Stuart

 

[Mike Teezie]

I put 4 new drives in my Mac Pro, and there were no jumpers to speak of....

 

[deathshrub]

Huh. I read the online manual at samsung.com for the drive and there's a whole page on jumper settings. For SATA. So, whatever. I trust what you say . . . maybe Samsung just whole-hog translated some Korean document or something. Wacky.

Second, how'll that work if I had some software pre-installed? Can I just shift the software over to the new disk?

Sounds like a plan, though: boot off the DVD (hold down mouse button?) and install on the new drive . . . cool.

Stuart

That link looks like it is for PATA or IDE drives, not SATA. From what I understand, each SATA device is on its own channel so every device is master, hence no need for jumpers.

 

[sturob]

It's the link for SATA. If you look at the next page, it shows how to hook up the SATA drive.

As I said, I'm perfectly willing to accept that the information is incorrect. I thought it was weird, too.

Their support pages are a little strange. As you said, that page looks like it's for some other kind of drive, but the only installation instructions given are for SATA.

Eh.

Stuart

 

[Lurgen]

It's the link for SATA. If you look at the next page, it shows how to hook up the SATA drive.

As I said, I'm perfectly willing to accept that the information is incorrect. I thought it was weird, too.

Their support pages are a little strange. As you said, that page looks like it's for some other kind of drive, but the only installation instructions given are for SATA.

Eh.

Stuart

Chalk it up to poorly translated documentation. All SATA channels are effectively "master" drives, although there is technically support in the SATA protocol for master/slave drives. Fortunately, this isn't handled using jumpers.

Alternatively, blame it on Hitachi and go buy some Seagate drives ;-)