*HP HDX DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 1*

Well naturally a 500GB 7200 RPM HDD will be faster than a 250GB 5400rpm drive. Mostly because of platter density rather more so than rotational speed.

As for power consumption between the 7200rpm 500Gb Seagate and the 5400rpm 640GB, the difference is more like ~25% more watts at idle and at load for the 7200rpm 500Gb drive over the 5400rpm 640Gb drive. It's all there in the Tom's hardware links I supplied.

 

Nope, battery use remains the same (real world use), plus on the official Seagate site it says so: the difference is only 0.05%. No 25% more watts.

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...ecadd110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD&locale=en-US
The Seagate® Momentus® 7200.4 drive ... draw only .05 percent more power than a 5400-RPM laptop drive.

Edit:
And here is a comparison table:
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_momentus_fam.pdf
Idle power consumption is actually lower for the 7200RPM 500GB drive and seek noise level (acoustics) is lower as well. Get the model without the G sensor, as it is slightly faster and also ~8% cheaper. After all, you are not going to drop the HDX and if you do other parts of the notebook will definitely be broken.

 

I'm not disappointed, there's nothing for you to feel sorry about. And this isn't a contest. I'm just reporting facts and benchmarks for the benefit of the one who asked and those that might be curious.

Seagate, like all nearly manufacturers, report nominal figures. On Tom's hardware are actual tests and actual benchmarks. You can find other actual tests on the web. Even in other forums that corroborate the figures found on Tom's hardware. All one has to do is the math to get the percentages where it is not calculated for you. The difference is approximately 25% in terms of watts consumed. 7200 @ idle uses ~1.05 watts. 5400 uses ~.8 watts. I never made any claims to battery life but obviously it will amount to slightly more run-time during identical usage patterns.

And if you compare Seagate's PDFs spec's for each drive, you will notice even more pronounced power consumptions stats such as the difference in average seek power consumption and average operating power consumption favoring the 5400RPM drive. But again, these are nominal figures and benchmark test would show you more realistic measures.

7200 in question: http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/...ook/momentus/7200.4 (Holliday)/100534376a.pdf

5400 in question: ST9640320AS Momentus 5400 SATA 3Gb/s 640-GB Hard Drive | Seagate

You made a unsubstantiated claim that the 7200RPM 500GB drive was 33% faster and a better buy than the 640Gb 5400rpm drive. That didn't jive with what I know about HDDs so I looked it up and since it appeared that someone was looking to upgrade, I was obligated to report findings. Moreover, since the one asking about HDDs just bought an external enclosure and drive, it seemed that he was looking for capacity over RAW speed. Let alone to upgrade his Fujitsu drives. And since the 640GB 5400rpm Seagate is only about 8% slower than the 7200rpm 500Gb, and cost almost the same, it seems like that is the better buy. Especially since the one who asked is also interested in an SSD which is radically faster than a HDD.

In any event, I hope that this issue has been fleshed out enough for the benefit of anyone interested.

 

I should have said I was reporting the AVERAGE "sum" of many user experience s of 7200.4 (16MB cache) drive speed vs. speed of different high-end to mid-range 5400 drives with 8MB cache, and did extrapolate this to your 640GB model, which is not very accurate, I must admit, but still holds (you found an ~8% boost --read below one such user experience on Amazon.com reporting a 100% increase:

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
This review is from: Seagate ST9500420AS, 500GB Mobile SATA Momentus, 7200RPM 16MB Cache (Electronics)
I upgraded the 320MB 5400rpm Hitachi HTS543232L9SA02 drive to the 500GB Seagate Momentus ST9500420AS in my Macbook Pro (2.66GHz Core 2 Duo). Technically it works really well, no hiccups with the installation, no heat issues even when working hard, and the system feels more nippy (I use things like Photoshop, VMware Fusion etc.).

"xbench" (a free Max benchmarking utility) now reports a "Disk Test" score of 52.6 (vs. 33.7 for the 5400rpm drive). Sample xbench results show a much better performance increase than expected:

Sequential
Uncached Write 256 MB blocks: 78 MB/s (vs. 40 MB/s for the 5400rpm drive)
Uncached Read 256 MB blocks: 80.6 MB/s (vs. 41.1 MB/s for the 5400rpm drive)

Random
Uncached Write 256 MB blocks: 52 MB/s (vs. 20.7 MB/s for the 5400rpm drive)
Uncached Read 256 MB blocks: 26.2 MB/s (vs. 13.2 MB/s for the 5400rpm drive)

This 100% increase corresponds to what PassMark is reporting (256 : 505):
PassMark Software - Hard Drive Benchmark Charts

 

Verily so. You're not wrong in thinking that the space would be appreciated at a better value (for me personally), and at this point any of these would frankly perform much better than my current set-up.

Saying that, given I can now throw my two Fujitsu into 2.5" caddys, I'm inclined to use those as USB drives (with one as a Vista backup) and grab a 320GB/500GB seagate now that I've got more freedom to shift files to the new external, with the potential to throw an SSD in there at a later date.

 

You can get the ST9500420AS 7200 500GB for £59 including free DHL delivery from cbcomputers.

 

Edit: Blame my tired eyes but I misread 2.0 as saying the pricing was cheaper for the larger sized drive. I think I'm definitely going to hide for a while

The pricing is the same then, excuse me while I take a lie down...

 

The cost per GB is now about the same (~12p) for the ST9500420AS and the other ST9640320AS 640GB, but the ST9500420AS 500GB is undeniably the fastest.

 

The Mediasmart uses all hard drives as one pool, doesn't that mean because of that it will downclock like the techs stated? Maybe downclock is the wrong word, I don't know what that's called but I guess I'm asking if it's all one pool of storage space, and I have say mostly 7200 drives EXCEPT one 5400 wouldnt that mean reads and writes will all be 5400?

 

Nice exchange Kindheart and 2.0, thanks.

 

Don't see why it would. Even if it were to span data across drives (break up a single file and store parts of it across several drives). Throughput is throughput and is a function of the drive itself. So when data is stored on a drive with slower throughput, when the server accesses it, the data will be retrieved or written to at whatever speed the drive is able to irrespective of the other drive's throughput.

So if data is spanning more than one drive with different throughput, you'll end up with somewhat of an average transfer rate of the two drives. You can't calculate exactly because you have to account for seek time, file size, latency, buffer size, etc.

 

I have to admit I was not accurate or clear enough in my original post. I've also just noted and corrected an error in another post of mine: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...dx-dragon-owners-lounge-1056.html#post6271955
(The 50% increase is in fact a 100% increase (256 : 505) and this is now corrected.)

I very much respect 2.0 and his vast knowledge. He has always been a very reliable source of information and practical tips on this forum.

 

Seagate ST9500325AS - 5400-500GB vs. Seagate ST9500420ASG - 7200 - 500GB
(the G is known to be slightly slower than the non-G version and also to cause noise issues because of a conflict with the Macbook own sensor, though this latter clicking issue has been rectified in a recent firmware upgrade from Seagate aimed specifically at Macbooks)

Subjective but real-world review, with videos:
Macbook Pro Hard Disk Upgrade

Boot times on same machine are 2 minutes 35 seconds for the 5400 and only 57 seconds for the 7200! Improvement in applications' startup times is equally amazing (you got to see and compare the last two videos on the above page to believe it).

 

All good.

But before things get too confusing for readers, there are general rules of thumb that guide HDD speeds.

A 7200 RPM drive will generally be faster than a 5400 of the same or lower capacity.

I.e. a 500GB 7200RPM HDD faster than a 500GB 5400RPM HDD

However, a 5400 RPM drive of higher capacity will nearly match or beat the speed of a 7200 RPM HDD of lower capacity.

I.e. a 640GB 5400 RPM HDD will match or come close to the throughput speed of a 500GB 7200 RPM HDD.

The reason is because of platter areal density. While the 7200rpm drive spins faster, the read/write head has to travel further across the surface of a 500Gb or less HDD than it would have to on a 640GB or higher HDD @ 5400 RPM. The size of the platter is fixed. The density however becomes greater with capacity.

That's it in a nutshell. Don't always go for rotational speed as your only consideration. Balance with drive density (as reflected in capacity since all modern 2.5" drives have 2 platters) vs. rotational speed. Then have a look at posted benchmarks to confirm.

Also, unless the difference in performance is greater than ~20%, you won't notice the difference at all in real world performance. So say a drive can transfer 70MB/sec and the other 65MB/sec. A lees than 10% difference. You need to read or write a 5MB file. The 70MB/sec drive will do it in ~6 milliseconds. The other in ~5.5. Will you notice? No. Now say you need to transfer a 5GB video file. The 70MB/sec will do it in ~72 seconds. The other in ~77 seconds. Does the 5 second difference really matter?

If you really want raw speed and lightning fast access times, get an SSD. The example above (5GB file) would have been completed in 1/3 to 1/4 the time.

 

I am satisfied with the very noticeable 33%+ real world performance increase (boot time, app startup, etc.) of the ST9500420AS 500GB/7200RPM-16MB cache over HP's original WDC WD2500BEVS 250GB/5400RPM that was factory installed in the HDX. The Seagate is also quieter and has almost the same power consumption as the HP WDC. I don't want anything more or less (especially performance-wise). It's adequate for my purpose, and has good storage capacity (SSDs are relatively limited in this respect) at a very affordable price (SSDs also can't beat this). WEI score jumped from 5.2 to 5.9, which is the maximum score any mechanical drive can achieve in Win7. I am happy and thankful.

 

Indeed. When I went from the stock 160GB 7200RPM Fujitsu drives to 320GB 7200RPM Seagate drives, I was very happy. Was easily a 35%+ boost. Though, when I went from 320GB Seagate to a 120GB OCZ SSD, I couldn't contain myself. ~400% increase in speed. Several thousand times faster seek times. And an overall system improvement on the order of ~100%.

I had the same issue of deciding if an SSD was worth it. But since the HDX has dual HDD bays and an external eSATA, storage ultimately wouldn't be an issue.

The price of SSDs has finally started coming down. When I bought mine, I caught one of those rare sales with rebate. Funny thing is, I bought a size too large as I only use 35GB of a 120GB SSD. All that is really needed is a 60GB-80GB SSD. On my tablet I get away with a 30GB with 11GB to spare. My DV5 has a 60GB SSD.

So, I hope prices come down enough this year to make SSDs more accessible. They should as capacities increase. Only issue is whether or not they will lower the price on smaller capacities (60-80GB) or discontinue them making >100GB the minimum.

 

Does this mean Windows 7 would boot in 5-10 seconds to a usable desktop (based on current 40 sec. figure with mechanical 7200.4 drive)? Wow! Still the price (>$400) and capacity are major barriers for the time being (I need lots of space, >200GB, on the C drive due to some essential applications that have to be installed on the Windows [C] drive in order to work properly). There is a 512GB SSD but it is prohibitively expensive: Toshiba 512GB SSD Hard drive (2.5 SATA) - P000519470

 

Not quite that fast because of driver initializations. But 20-30 secs on boot time is the norm. Once at the desktop is where the difference in performance is radical. I'm sure you've must have read the other SSD owner's posts about the amazing difference.

In any event, the majority of modern programs give you the option to install on a drive other than root (C drive and work just fine. For the ones that don't, you can force the default install drive by changing a registry setting.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

Change the drive letter to in strings ProgramFilesDir and ProgramfilesDir(x86) to the drive letter of your 2nd drive. Then just create those directories on the 2nd drive. Reboot or log out to set.

 

hey guys! a lot to read but i have to jump in here with a quick question regarding the 2.5" hard drive affair...

i see there are (3) 640gb hard drives being made (at least) in 2.5". It seems like 2.0, recommended the seagate one and not the western digital...wondering why? also...why not the samsung. i will include links here for newegg:

samsung
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Spinpoint M7E HM641JI 640GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive
passmark rating
http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd_lookup.php?cpu=SAMSUNG+HM641JI

western digital
Newegg.com - Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD6400BEVT 640GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive
passmark rating
http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd_lookup.php?cpu=WDC+WD6400BEVT

seagate
Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus 5400 ST9640320AS 640GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive
passmark rating
http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd_lookup.php?cpu=Seagate+ST9640320AS

and apparently, although small margin, it seems like samsung is the best performing (~20% better score than seagate), then western digital, then seagate...so i am wondering what the bottom line is on which to get (next) for another external storage hard drive?

pros/cons? is the samsung really tops for these 3?

 

First, welcome back! :laugh:

They're all good. But as noted, the Samsung is the fastest.

I only "recommended" the Seagate as a counter point about value over a Seagate 7200RPM 500GB drive. But as you can see, the Samsung 640GB 5400RPM is faster than even the 7200RPM 500GB. Though only about 12% faster. But is, as you calculated, 20% faster than the Seagate 640GB.

 

thanks! not sure if this is out yet. i cannot seem to find it, but it seems better yet. 2.5" 640gb, with 16MB cache instead of 8MB, and 7200rpm drive.

articles here
Samsung Introduces Performance Driven 640GB Spinpoint MP4 2.5" HDD - HotHardware

and here
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/0...a-2-5-inch-640gb-7200-rpm-drive-meant-for-us/


I guess this is not an "enclosure" drive in the sense that you'd probably need a power adaptor to run it.

 

Low-cost enclosures with dual USB plugs (one dedicated to power) should be adequate based on experience with comparable high-capacity drives. These days 2.5" drives are getting more and more power efficient, and I don't think Samsung would break this important trend in their latest offering.

 

Hey guys -
I'm positive there is a very simple answer/solution to this... anyway here goes:

I have Win7 installed on my Seagate 500GB 7200; I have that drive partitioned into an OS partition (Drive G and Data (D . I have another older drive in there, that is basically taking up space. It is partitioned as the original C: drive, and has WinXP installed on it. Whenever I reboot, it asks me if I want to boot XP or 7, and it defaults to 7 if I dont select anything. I decided it was time to finally make use of the old hard drive (the one with XP/designated C: drive) by reformatting it. In Disk Management, however, it won't let me format the drive. The option is grayed out (unlike if I were to right click on my D: Data partition on the newer 500GB drive, the format option is available and not grayed out). I'm assuming it has something to do with the fact that C: has an OS installed on it? Well, I decided I was too tired and annoyed to deal with this, so I decided to straight up pull out the hard drive from the computer, leaving me with only the Seagate 500GB (Drives G: and D:, OS and DATA respectively). When I tried to turn on the computer, it showed the HP logo and then immediately said some error along the lines of "bootable hard disk/operating system not found" or something like that, I dont remember exactly what it said but I dont feel like powering off, pulling out the drive, and turning it on, just to tell you what it said verbatim. But again, it kept telling me there wasn't a hard drive or OS or something to boot from. Which is strange, because it has win7 installed on it (G: partition). Just for s and giggs, I moved the hard drive from one bay to the other, seeing if that'd do anything, and no results, same error. The only way I could boot back into Win7 was by putting the old drive I had just taken out(with WINXP on it?!? ) back in. Annoying.

Now I'm sure there is some simple way to fix this, wither it's in disk management or boot loader or something, but I just don't know quite how things work. Can someone help me? I want to be able to
#1 Reformat the old drive (C
#2 Change whatever settings such that, I can leave only the Seagate 500GB drive in and be able to turn on and boot Win7 without any errors...
#3 Not really as important, but after successfully doing #1-2, would I be able to simply change the drive letter of my Win7 OS (G to C:, WITHOUT any complications? (For example, maybe all previously installed programs looking for G: instead of C:, and coming up with tons of errors?)

Someone please help me out! I know this is probably really simple!

 

With the other drive in the 2nd slot, boot up.

When at the desktop, in the search box on the startup menu type: msconfig.

Click the boot tab. You should see a list of installed OS. Click the win7 OS and hit set as default. Then click the winXP one and hit delete. Then Check the box next to "make all boot settings permanent. Hit OK.

Reboot.

You should now be able to reformat the drive with XP on it.

If that doesn't do the trick, use your win7 DVD. You have to boot off of it. But first you have to remove the HDD with XP on it.

Then follow this tutorial on how to repair the bootloader: Startup Repair - Windows 7 Forums

When you are done, the HDD with XP will no longer be registered in the bootloader and you will be free to repartition and reformat it.

 

2nd slot? Sorry if this is dumb, but are the 2 HDD slots actually designated "Slot 1" and "Slot 2"? If so, which slot is which, and does it actually make a difference that the old HDD is in slot 2? Oh, and I'm also sure this doesn't make a difference, I've super tired and have been writing about XP being on the old drive in my last post, it's actually Vista on the old drive (C , not XP.

I did try your first step of advice, deleting it in msconfig, making it permanent, reboot etc, but it won't let me format in either partition management or by opening up a cmd prompt. Format option still grayed out in disk management, and DOS informs me I "System Partition is not allowed to be formatted". Like previous paragraph mentioned, does this 1st/2nd slot placement matter? Or do I have to go through with the removal of the drive and using my Win7 disk? How does removing the old Vista drive and then booting to Win7 disk help me format it when it isn't even physically attached?

Thanks again 2.0.

 

You guys check this out yet? Seems pretty cool.

Seagate pairs 7200RPM HDD with 4GB of NAND in 2.5-inch Momentus XT hybrid drive -- Engadget

 

HDX only boots off slot 1 which is labeled as such. So the drive you want to boot off must be in slot 1. That drive has the bootloader. By using the win7 dvd method with the 2nd drive(XP one) out, it will eliminate the registration of the 2nd drive from the bootloader, see the win7 install and fix your bootloader. Otherwise it will see that 2nd drive and leave it in the bootloader. When it's done, shut down. Put the 2nd drive back in and you will be able to partition and format.

I have a dual boot system except I installed the OSs on each HDD separately (one at a time in slot 1) so that neither sees the other's bootloader. I use a bootable USB key with a Linux bootloader that selects the 2nd drive to boot off from. Multibooting and dual booting otherwise almost invariably causes problems down the road.

 

Yeah, I was reading about that earlier today. Anandtech has a good review.

Seagate's Momentus XT Reviewed, Finally a Good Hybrid HDD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

They likely will give SSDs a run for their money considering the price point. Newegg lists it for $130US. Not in stock yet so the price could jump on release demand.

 

Yeah, if the price/performance/size ratio is all they claim, should be a good deal and is why it caught my eye. I haven't upgraded yet, because I was not wanting to spend SSD prices. I might do it when this hits the street.

 

But in a year.......these will will very likely have obsolete written all over them except for supermarket cam TiVos. Portables are outweighing non-portables so that rpm drives are losing their momentum (pun intended) regardless of predictions. You'll end up shelling out multiples instead of on one investment if you want to keep up.

But I won't argue with those of you who need max storage.

=

 

Not on all fronts:
go to Charts, benchmarks 2009 2.5? Mobile Hard Drive Charts, h2benchw 3.12: Avg Read Throughput scroll-down to the chart and tick compare ST9500420AS and HM641JI )

PCMark Vantage
Gaming [MB/s]
Score in MB/s
12.60 vs. 9.62

PCMark Vantage
Application loading
Score in MB/s
4.90 vs. 3.42

PCMark Vantage
Importing Pictures to Windows Photo Gallery [MB/s]
Score in MB/s
42.80 vs. 27.81

Mobile Performance
50% Throughput - 25% PCMark - 25% I/O
Score in score
317.65 vs. 271.69

PCMark Vantage
adding music to Windows Media Player
Score in MB/s
9.20 vs. 8.27

PCMark Vantage
Score
Score in Score
4289.00 vs. 3382.00

h2benchw 3.12: Avg Read Throughput
Read Transfer Rates
([MB/s, sorted by average])
Score in MB/s
80.12 vs. 72.00

etc.

 

Yes, not always. Depends on the benchmark used.

But between the Passmark, Tomshardware, sisoftware and HD tune 2.55 benchmarks, the Samsung 640GB turns out to be the better buy if one is looking for capacity and relative high speed.

HD tune 2.55:

Seagate 500Gb 7200rpm; Dyski twarde - zestawienie - Seagate Momentus 7200.4 - Dyski Twarde - CDRinfo.pl

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/rank200...ddbcdde0d9e1d2f486bb8badc8ad90a086f5c8f0&l=en

Samsung 640GB 5400rpm; Samsung SpinPoint M7 (HM641JI) - Testy u?ytkowników - Dyski Twarde - CDRinfo.pl

Note burst, access time(seek) and CPU usage favor the Samsung. With the other measures (max,low,avg) lagging within an imperceptible 5% difference of the Seagate.

With the Tomshardware benchmark overall results, the Samsung is within the imperceptible overall measurement of 10% of the Seagate.

The passmark puts the Samsung ahead of the Seagate by an imperceptible 12%.

Sisoftware results: Statistical 0 (2.5% performance increase for Seagate)

Seagate: http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/rank200...ddbcdde0d9e1d2f486bb8badc8ad90a086f5c8f0&l=en

Samsung: http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/rank200...dee3d2e3d2e3d7f183be8ea8cda895a583f0cdfe&l=en

Average out the benchmarks and they are at a real world veritable dead heat. Which means price versus capacity versus speed favor the Samsung.

 

One thought concerning PassMark is that the number of machine samples per each drive on their charts varies and the scores can be affected by the hardware configurations of the corresponding machines. For example, the Samsung 640GB in question has only been scored in 10 machines (as at May 25, 2010), while the Seagate 7200.4 500GB scores are the average from 1198 machines (as at May 25, 2010), many of which must be Atom netbooks as the 7200.4 500GB is, for example, a popular upgrade among the Asus Eee PC 1000 netbook series' users (see their forums). In fact, I have noticed that the Seagate 7200.4 500GB PassMark scores at PassMark Software - Hard Drive Benchmark Charts have increased over the past three days from 505 to 506.

 

Ugh. I cannot figure this out. My computer setup that WORKS, is currently the old drive with Vista (C stuck in slot 1, and my newer Seagate with Win7 and all my data (G and (D in slot 2. This is the only way my computer will boot up. When I removed the old drive from slot 1 and moved the new drive from slot 2 to slot 1, and tried to boot, my computer claimed that there was no system drive found etc and couldn't boot. For s and gigs I moved the new Win7 drive back into slot 2, and kept slot 1 empty without the old Vista drive there, it still wouldn't boot up. Trying to troubleshoot, I took out the new drive out of slot 2, put the OLD drive into slot 1, powered up. It immediately went to a screen that said something along the lines of not finding something bootable, and that it wanted a system recovery CD to be inserted. But not the same screen as Ive been seeing before. Then I moved the old drive from slot 1 to slot 2, and this time got a red screen with lots of troubleshooting booting options that I can't remember. But again this is with the old drive.

So basically, I can't really do much at this point to boot into windows, unless I have the old vista drive in slot 1 and my new drive with win7 and everything else in slot 2. ? Please help me fix this!

 

Ok.
Put the Win 7 drive in slot 1.
Leave slot 2 empty.
Boot the computer up with the win7 DVD already in the optical drive.

You're going to install win7 as an upgrade. This will maintain the majority your settings and installed programs.

See the following tutorial: Repair Install - Windows 7 Forums

Important. SKIP steps 1-3 since you are doing this from a boot environment. Step 4 will come up. Follow tutorial from there.

This will get you where you want to go.

When you're done, shut down and install your other HDD (one with Vista and XP) in the empty slot. You will be able to delete partitions, repartition and format.

 

Is it important that I do this by booting from the DVD already in the drive? Or can it be done from within windows? I put the new win7 drive into slot 1, removed the old drive completely. Booted from the win7 DVD. After it loading the installation, and a couple steps in, I selected "upgrade". At that point, it informed me that I needed to remove the DVD, let windows start up as normal, and then reinsert the DVD and then restart the upgrade process. It would not let me upgrade when booting from the DVD. Is this unusual? Is it ok to do it the way that the installer is mandating, (do the upgrade from within windows, rather than booting from the DVD)? Or is this going to complicate things? I'm sure there's a reason you instructed me to do the upgrade from booting to the DVD, you ARE 2.0...

 

Wait, I think I just figured it out. LOL. I won't be able to do this upgrade properly using those steps (upgrading WITHIN windows) because I'll have to put the old drive back into slot 1 and my new drive into slot 2 just to boot into windows! . Now what?

 

I had to re-read your first post on the issue.

You have more than one partition on the Win7 drive. And the win7 one isn't set to active. It would first need to be set to active then you would be able to run startup repair.

So here's what we need to do:

You have to set the partition with win 7 as active.

This involves command line work. Up for it?

1. Boot to the Win7 DVD with only the Win7 HDD installed.
2. Go to command prompt in the repair section.
3. Once you get a command prompt, Type these commands one at a time followed by enter and wait for a response:

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk 0
list partition

Ok since you have two partitions, you will need to determine which one is the win7 installed partition. If you can tell which is which by remembering the size of the partition, then you're ok. If not, then you can do that by doing the following:

select partition 1
detail partition

If the info it lists rings a bell as being the partition with win7 installed, then type the following:

active
assign letter=c
exit
exit

If it is not the partition with win7 installed, then type the following:

select partition 2
active
assign letter=c
exit
exit

Reboot making sure the win7 DVD is in the drive because you need to boot from it again. Then you will need to run startup repair.

Follow this tutorial again: Startup Repair - Windows 7 Forums

You may need to run this startup repair 2 or 3 times as it creates a MBR, bootloader, OS entry.

If it can't repair it, then you will need to create a Bootloader for that partition the hard way.

Tutorial on manual way: Recovering the Vista Bootloader from the DVD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

If all of this appears too daunting, you can do a clean install of the OS if you don't mind losing all your files on the win 7 OS partition. Your Data partition will be unaffected.

 

It has been a while since I have messed with boot sector issues. But the issue here is that the boot loader/MBR info is currently stored on your XP HDD.

Win 7 may automatically repair the boot loader/MBR for you. With the Win 7 HDD in slot 1 and nothing in slot 2 try booting from the Win 7 DVD, select language and keyboard or input method, click Next and choose to Repair your computer. Then you will need to select the operating system that you want to repair. In the System Recovery Options dialog box click Startup Repair. This may automatically fix it.

If the above does not automatic fix the issue for you try these steps: Most likely you will need the last step.


Restoring Windows Boot Loader Manually


Boot from Windows 7 installation disc, select language and keyboard or input method, click Next and choose to Repair your computer. Then you will need to select the operating system that you want to repair. In the System Recovery Options dialog box click Command Prompt and type the following:

Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
Bootrec.exe /FixBoot

If you want to completely rebuild Windows Vista Boot Configuration Data, then you should issue the following command:

Bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd

This command scans all disks for installations that are compatible with Windows 7. Additionally, this option also allows select the installations that you want to add to the Boot Configuration Data store.

Good luck.

*EDIT*
Just saw 2.0 got a post in just before mine. We are on the same page. I did not think about the fact that you r HDD most likely is not set to active. This may be fixed by following the step I gave above. If not what 2.0 wrote will work as well.

Another option if you do not want to mess with the command line as much is to slave your Win 7 HDD in a computer that can boot to a different windows installation. Then go to disk management and right click on the Win 7 partition and set it to active. I have done this before.

 

Alright who is going to put this in their HDX!?!?!? :wink:

NVIDIA Announces GTX 480M: Mobile Fermi Coming Soon - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

LOL, I wish.

 

It's going to be as bad a flop as the FX series was. The GTX 465 reviews do not look promising, and it's going to be clocked WAY lower. The 8800 still ranks near the top of the mobile world.

 

I have tried a combination of things between both 2.0 and CompTrekkie. Oh and I have no problem with working in command prompt.

At first I actually was even having trouble getting to the command prompt. Selecting "Repair my computer" led to the next screen where I was supposedly able to select the partition with the win7 installation on it, but the window was just blank, it couldn't find a windows installation at all, preventing me from going to the next screen to get to the command prompt. After a few frustrated reboots and reattempts, I clicked on "repair my computer" and for whatever reason this time it scanned for windows installations (it hadn't done this scan before) and found an installation. But when I clicked on it and then "next", it said
"This version of system recovery options is not compatible with the version of windows you are trying to repair. Try using a recovery disc that is compatible with this version of windows."
I dont get it. I have inserted a windows 7 32/64 ultimate installation dvd. Which was strange, because it even said windows 7 ultimate installed on the partition, location C : (which is strange to me since in my working configuration of both drives installed, win7 is on G : partition). It did however have in parentheses (recovered) next to "Windows 7 Ultimate". But after clicking ok on the incompatibility error message, it allowed me to click 'next' anyway, letting me get to the command prompt.

I was able to do the first half of 2.0's steps successfully (setting the win7 partition as active). Or at least I'm assuming it worked, I followed his steps verbatim and didn't run into any errors at all. I tried restarting, rebooting to DVD, and then doing a startup repair, and then I got an error. It told me that "Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically, would you like to send this information to microsoft etc etc".

So I rebooted back to the DVD again, then started Trekkie's steps.
Went into cmdprmpt, did

Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
Bootrec.exe /FixBoot

it "performed both of these operations successfully" , and very quickly might I add too. Like each one took maybe 2 seconds at the most. I didn't think much of the quick fix times at this point, until later. I rebooted, hoping that I would be able to then complete startup repair. I got the same problem that "Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically", so I went back into command prompt and tried Trekkies 3rd step,

Bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd

It said
"Scanning etc, please wait might take a while"
and then maybe 5 seconds later it was followed with

"successfully scanned windows installations,
total identified windows installations: 0,
the operation completed successfully"

and that was it. I tried it again, the scan took seconds, and came back with ZERO total identified windows installations. Which makes me think back to the previous 2 bootrec.exe steps that both took like 2 seconds to complete, that maybe nothing was done at all even though it said it was done successfully... anyway tried a reboot, startup repair once again, and once again the error that startup repair cannot repair this computer automatically.
Clicking on problem details provides the following information:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: StartupRepairOffline
Problem Signature 1: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 2: 6.1.7600.16835
Problem Signature 3: unknown
Problem Signature 4: -1
Problem Signature 5: ExternalMedia
Problem Signature 6: 1
Problem Signature 7: MissingBootManager
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033


. ! ?

As I type this, I'm using another backup laptop, I'm not even sure if at this point I put the win7 drive back into slot 2 and the old drive back into slot 1 if I will even be able to boot up. Well I haven't tried yet, but who knows. Any ideas you two? Will I have to follow 2.0s advice and do this?

"If it can't repair it, then you will need to create a Bootloader for that partition the hard way.

Tutorial on manual way: Recovering the Vista Bootloader from the DVD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki"

Thanks again guys

 

Yes, it looks like you are going to have to create a bootloader the hard way. (Which means with only the win7 HDD installed, slot 2 empty.)

The error is telling you that there is no bootloader available.

I'm not sure if there are any dos mode programs available that would do that automatically.

One thing though, in that tutorial, you will need to change this line:

bcdedit.exe /create /d "Windows Vista" /application osloader

to this line:

bcdedit.exe /create /d "Windows 7" /application osloader

 

It looks as though that may be your only choice. I have never tried to repair a boot loader on a partition that never had a boot loader to start with. The boot loader is currently located on your XP HDD. It looks like the tools can only repair an exiting boot loader.

I would follow the step 2.0 gave you to completely rebuild one from scratch and hope that works.

*EDIT* He beat me again. lol

Something else to keep in mind. Once you have forcefully added the boot loader back in if it does not work as expected you should be able to follow the previous steps to repair it.

 

Me too

I'm just bummed that monitor resolution continues to be capped (e.g. watts). Fractured drafting of anything greatly limits global scope unless you're reinventing the nut.

=

 

Unfortunately I haven't been able to get very far in the manual bootloader way. I did the first repair option it mentioned, the one that ends with "shutdown -r -t 0" and then mentions that "if you're lucky, thisll work and you'll see a message and everything went OK". Well it didn't go ok, so I proceeded to the next phase, the one titled "Step Four: Nuclear Holocaust"

It was stuck on the very 2nd command in Step Four.

It was making me "make sure the MBR and bootsector contain the right references to the bootloader", so the first command was "bootrec.exe /fixmbr", which it did successfully and quickly. The 2nd command, "x:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force", is where I had problems. I typed it exactly as that, except there was a C instead of X. And it told me that it was "not recognized as an integral or external command". I tried it under both the X prompt AND the C prompt, with the same results. I tried removing c:\boot and just typing "bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force" and still no bueno. Not recognized as an integral or external command. Am I typing something wrong? Help!

 

This is my bad. I should have specified. Sorry. But stay with step four. The command didn't work because you don't have a bootsec.exe or MBR on the drive yet.

Start at the point under step four where it says:

bcdedit.exe /create /d "Windows Vista" /application osloader

Except of course "windows vista" should be "Windows 7".

Then continue to the end of that section.

 

Sigh. I followed the manual instructions perfectly. No errors. When I was finally all done, I rebooted, with just the Win7 drive in slot 1, and immediately after the HP logo screen I got the too familiar error message saying it couldn't find the boot loader. I put the win DVD back in, tried to see if I could do a startup repair, and I got that same error saying it could not repair automatically. I really don't know what else to do. I did the ENTIRE Step 4 of the manual boot fix TWICE with no errors, and it's still not working. Am I to assume that my only fix is to reformat and install win7 on the G : partition of the new drive? Or do you have any other tricks up your sleeve?

 

I would say so. Seems this issue has been bent so much that it broke. If the time consumption continues, you'll probably be more efficient with a clean install.

.....and, I apologize if I missed something pertinent eluding me to the absolute necessity for fixing instead of reinstall, but I'm sure something will work out to your benefit.

=

 

Unfortunately, I'm all out of ideas. I have some theories but it might just end up being a wild goose chase.

If you reinstall the OS, make sure you only have 1 HDD installed, the one you want to install it to, in the HDX. Otherwise it will detect the other OS(s) and add them to the bootloader.

But the drive letter has to be C: for the OS. You don't want to install a primary OS onto a partition with a logical drive letter of G:

You may need to get rid of your data partition. So offload that data to some storage media.

As Digitalwindow says, clean install at this point is probably the best bet.