Something similar to Preclear Script for Windows XP?


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My Hitachi 5K3000 comes in today and I was curious if there was something similar to the preclear script for Windows XP. I'm still gathering parts for a server, but I'd like to move all data from my F4 drive to this drive so I can patch the drive without fear of data loss during patching in case something goes wrong. Should I just run a Long SMART test or something else?

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I suppose you could format it outside of XP with a linux rescue CD and from there (or within XP using a driver to read reiserfs partitions) copy your data over.

 

If you just want to run a sanity check on the new drive, I'm sure there are some decent tools you can use to test a drive under XP. Once you're confident the 5k3000 is reliable, why not just clone the F4? Clonezilla comes to mind.

 

http://clonezilla.org/

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Yes, I jst want to shake down the drive to make sure it's good to go. I'd love to clone the drive, but my board had HPA enabled when I checked earlier today so I have no idea if it's got its roots in this drive. I intend to move all data to the hew Hitachi, patch the Samsung F4, recover any space taken up by HPA, and then format the drive and move everyhting back onto the F4 drive.

 

I suppose you could format it outside of XP with a linux rescue CD and from there (or within XP using a driver to read reiserfs partitions) copy your data over.

 

If you just want to run a sanity check on the new drive, I'm sure there are some decent tools you can use to test a drive under XP. Once you're confident the 5k3000 is reliable, why not just clone the F4? Clonezilla comes to mind.

 

http://clonezilla.org/

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How is your F4 formatted? NTFS?

 

You could try this: http://www.hdtune.com/ on the Hitachi

 

and then simply partition/format as you normally would and copy over the data. I'd use something like teracopy since it can perform CRC validation as it copies.

 

 

 

Yes, NTFS. I already have HD Tune Pro, but I didn't know it did a surface scan. I can just use that and Seatools, etc to make sure it's good to go. Thanks for the help.

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Just a thought, but I wonder if you could set up a Cygwin environment on XP well enough to satisfy the preclear script?

 

http://www.cygwin.com/

 

If I did use the preclear script, would I still be able to format and use that disc in XP?

 

 

MOD EDIT: word correction

 

Yes, no problem with that, in fact I recently did just that when building a new Win7 box.  I precleared the new drives in my unraid server and then removed them and installed them into the Win7 box.  I know I've removed old drives from my unraid server and added them to XP machines in the past, the Disk Administrator just gives you a warning that the partition you are about to delete is of an unknown type and may contain foreign data.  In one case I had precleared the drive after taking it out of service and then when I put it into an XP machine it showed up in Disk Administrator as not having any partitions, and so it allowed you to create a partition without any warning.

 

Regards,

 

Stephen

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You may be able to boot your windows machine with the free version of unRAID, run pre-clear, and the reboot to Windows.

 

This is what I would do. Just be careful not to accidentally preclear your windows drives! You might want to disconnect them just to be safe.

 

Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk

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btw, I hope your 5K3000 arrives in better shape than mine. My first one was DOA. The replacement arrived today and it looks like someone or something pierced the anti-static bag in several places with a sharp object. That had to have happened before it was put in the bubble wrap, small box and shipping box since no indications it happened during shipping. I am going to pre-clear it several times before I start yelling at Newegg (if I need to).

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btw, I hope your 5K3000 arrives in better shape than mine. My first one was DOA. The replacement arrived today and it looks like someone or something pierced the anti-static bag in several places with a sharp object. That had to have happened before it was put in the bubble wrap, small box and shipping box since no indications it happened during shipping. I am going to pre-clear it several times before I start yelling at Newegg (if I need to).

 

I don't know how Newegg stores these, but I've got a few spots in the bag where there are small holes. I've got the Sil3132 running and finally found the drivers for XP, turns out you need to use the RAID driver and not the non-RAID driver for it to work in XP. I'm running HD Tune's check right now. This is my main PC, and I work from home, so I can't have the PC tied up for an entire day while it preclears.

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I don't know how Newegg stores these, but I've got a few spots in the bag where there are small holes. I've got the Sil3132 running and finally found the drivers for XP, turns out you need to use the RAID driver and not the non-RAID driver for it to work in XP. I'm running HD Tune's check right now. This is my main PC, and I work from home, so I can't have the PC tied up for an entire day while it preclears.

 

Sounds like our drives came off the same shelf. Mine had holes pierced all the way through the bag on the top corners. However they store them, they sure aren't careful with the inventory. 69% into the pre-read and still going strong. Temps and speed look decent so far.

 

If I read correctly, HD Tune has an erase plus verify feature? Maybe run through that a few times while checking SMART in between. That along with the error scanning might be a reasonable substitute to most of the preclear script features.

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I don't know how Newegg stores these, but I've got a few spots in the bag where there are small holes. I've got the Sil3132 running and finally found the drivers for XP, turns out you need to use the RAID driver and not the non-RAID driver for it to work in XP. I'm running HD Tune's check right now. This is my main PC, and I work from home, so I can't have the PC tied up for an entire day while it preclears.

 

Sounds like our drives came off the same shelf. Mine had holes pierced all the way through the bag on the top corners. However they store them, they sure aren't careful with the inventory. 69% into the pre-read and still going strong. Temps and speed look decent so far.

 

If I read correctly, HD Tune has an erase plus verify feature? Maybe run through that a few times while checking SMART in between. That along with the error scanning might be a reasonable substitute to most of the preclear script features.

 

Thinking about it, they might store the drives like a diner stores receipts: pushed through pins/pegs.

 

MD Tune completed and found 0% damaged sectors. Temps are the highest out of my drives, but the other two drives are two Samsung Green drives. Temps are as follows:

 

Ambient on floor: 69F

1.5TB Samsung: 66F  ???

2TB Samsung: 72F

2TB Hitachi: 79F

 

I've also noticed a 2 degree discrepency between HD Tune and Speedfan on my Hitachi drive, so maybe these programs read temp data differently (incorrectly).

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