quick question on installing the os

hey, i previously wrote here about faulty harddrive making clicking noise and I decided to change harddrive to bigger capacity. however, if I know this correctly, windows media centre edition is embedded into the harddrive that came with the notebook and there is no seperate CD to install the OS. if I change to new harddrive, how can I install the OS onto the new harddrive?

 

You need to buy a Windows cd.

Or use your recovery cds.

 

You may be able to "build" a new CD from your current HD. Look up "slipstreaming XP" and see if that will help. If your notebook is still under warranty, Samsung should take care of the problem for you.

 

You should have a recovery CD. Boot from that and it will install the operating system. Note that if you have and want to use the Firstware Recovery Pro software then you need to install that first so that it creates its own hidden partition.

An alternative approach is to clone your existing HDD using software such as Acronis TrueImage. You will also need an external USB 2 2.5" SATA HDD enclosure such as this. Cloning is quicker if you have a lot of software installed.

John

PS: Did you run any diagnostic tests on your clicking HDD?

 

hey john, I was using my laptop with my battery not plugged in, and whats strange is that THAT was making the ticking noise, since i am now using my laptop with battery it makes no such noise anymore.... very strange.... no idea what that source of noise was from...

 

Ticking battery! ..... Never heard of one of those before.

Time to ask Samsung to replace it?

John

 

ahhh.... too much hassle... if its ganna be normal if i use with battery, i think im just ganna live with it haha.

 

Oops - I misread your previous post and thought the battery was ticking, not ticking when the battery is not installed. Normally, I have the battery in place but haven't heard any strange noises when the battery is removed.

John

 

John, are you sure you can install windows from recovery CD? I have it but dont know if it has windows on it.... Because i seem to recall the salesman saying that i can just reinstall windows straight from the harddrive but since im changing harddrive this can be a problem.

 

I'm 99.99% sure that you can install Windows from your recovery CD. That's what I did on my Q35 a couple of months ago. I tried to be clever and created a custom CD using nLite so that all the updates and patches and IE7 went in as part of the original installation. All was OK for a month until I discovered that a component of one of my other software packages wouldn't coexist with IE7, but I couldn't do the normal rollback to IE6 (found a fix for that eventually).

Anyway, you can test my theory by booting from the recovery CD and see if a Windows installation starts. Then exit.

If you use the recovery CD then you have to follow it with the drivers and utilities CD to get them installed (best to download all newer drivers and utilities, where they exist, beforehand and put them on another CD so you only install them only once).

The sales person is right that there is also a backup copy of the windows installation on the hard disk in the recovery partition and I presume that this copy includes the relevant drivers and utilities ready installed. How to load it is hidden somewhere in the documentation but this is irrelevant if you have changed the HDD.

If you want to create a recovery partition on the new HDD, I believe you have to do it first before installing Windows (presumably boot using the Firstware Recovery Pro CD).

While preparing your new HDD, I recommend that you have at least two partitions so that you can put all your valuables in the second one. If you every need to reinstall Windows, the Samsung CD just wipes your C: There's no repair option like on a normal installation CD. There is a free partition manager that is said to be OK but I can't remember the name.

John

 

there is a slight ticking noise if the GPU is running, dunno why, but whenever I start an OPENGL intensive app, i hear that ticking noise.

 

Hey John, I have a quick question. When you install windows XP on x60 plus do you have to have a driver on a floppy drive since harddrive is SATA or does windows xp recognize the harddrive without it?

 

Recent (at least SP2, maybe older) versions of XP have the SATA drivers built-in, so no problem there. Floppy disc? What's that and how do I use it? (Just joking - I keep a USB FDD in the drawer for special occasions).

I know Windows 2K has problems with SATA, but a neater solution than the floppy disk is to use nLite to create a new installation CD complete with all the drivers.

John

 

Ah ok, thanks alot for your answers as always!

 

John, i got another question. I believe it is BECAUSE I got few incidences of freezing while playing the game warcraft 3 that I had to turn off the computer manually (pushing power button for like 4 seconds) that it might have damaged my harddrive in a way that it started to make the tick tock noise? If you force shutdown the computer how much of an impact does that have on a notebook physically? Would that physically damage the harddrive? Also, you suggested that I should try 7.3 mobile catalyst for ATI x1700? what is the difference between the new catalyst you suggested for me and the one thats on the samsung driver's page which is 80mb ATI 8.283.0.0?

 

So you are worrying about the HDD again! Shall I merge this and the other thread?

Unless you are using a hammer on the power button, turning off the hung computer will not physically harm it or the hard disk. The hard disk will see the power going off and park the heads faster than you can blink (some of the HDDs have G-sensors and can park their heads before impact if they think the computer is being dropped). The power-off technique is something I also have to use from time to time, but not every day.

Sudden power off could leave damaged files because they were not closed properly (and would never be closed properly if the computer has hung). It is conceivable that the HDD could make repeated head movement noises if it is trying to read a corrupted file (optical drives definitely make a lot of commotion under those circumstances).

Have you tried running good old-fashioned CHKDSK (or whatever is its 21st century successor) to check the file integrity? And did you ever run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics? If you do have a dodgy HDD then get it replaced even if you plan to install a bigger HDD.

John

 

Where and how can you run manufacturer's diagnostic to check is the HDD is fine or not?

Also, I bought my x60 plus from korea... so to get the harddrive replaced, i would have to do international service and that would take couple of weeks at least, so im ganna wait until my university year is over...

but if HDD I THINK is making the noise am I qualified for harddrive swap or not because really it only makes the sound click clock which annoys me very much!!!

BUT the strange thing is, sometimes during the day it stops and sometimes it goes on for hours.... I really dont know whats going on here....

 

I had given you a link to the Fujitsu diagnostic utilities in the other thread. Here it is again. I would try the first on the list. Anyway, replacement seems to be the best way forward for you. Samsung make the quietest of the HDDs (I can't understand why they don't put them in their computers). I've got the HM160JI and it just hums slightly - no clicks. This is by design due to Samsung's hybrid latch system.

John