how to add third hard drive ?

[scott]

I have my small c: for OS and misc programming, and a second drive "F:" for video recording. I am now planning to add a third drive, also for video recording.

I believe GBPVR will only allow me to specify a single drive for video, so I must install the third drive and "merge" (the correct term escapes me at the moment) the two drives under the same "F:" drive letter, right?

If anyone could give me some insight on how that's done - in XP pro - I'd appreciate it. I'm fairly able in XP, so I only need the highlights to get me started.

Also, I'm wondering if the "merge" process requires all the data on the origional drive to be lost, or can it been done without effecting data - recordings.

Thanks,
Scott

[Koenie]

you can define spanned drives I use it to joint 2 250 GB drives togther. The nice thing is that moving them to a new install is possible contrary to most raid configurations.
You have to define dynamic disks which can than be spanned together. Once the drives are defined as dynamic you can change them without loosing the contents. I am not sure whether the conversion to dynamic disks is lossless.

[Ted the Penguin]

or to do this without using a mirrored drive you can mount the drive to a folder.
you would do this in computer managment -> disk managment

first install the disk into your case
right click on My Computer, click Manage
click Disk Managment
partition and format your drive as needed (I assume you can do this)
I would suggest you give the drive a letter when you format it.
now right click on your new partition
Change Drive Letters and Paths
Add
Mount to the following empty NTFS folder, click Browse
go to your videos folder and make a new folder calling it "new drive" or whatever
click Ok
that should be it

(I have never actually done this, so I dont know if there are any steps after you click ok. you might have to restart)

sorry if this is too specific, I am used to holding peoples hands through this stuff, so I kinda default to that mode of explanation (I have also written test plans, which must be able to be completed by anyone, so they read like that too)

[scott]

thanks guys...

[Ted the Penguin]

everything worked fine?

[scott]

Not yet Penguin... I found that my data cable only supports two drives so my upgrade was temporarily stalled!

[dab]

The mounting of the drive to a NTFS folder sounds like what I would want to do. I'm not looking at the GBPVR config right now but I thought that you specified a folder name where the recordings would be saved. I'm confused how having the third drive mounted to a folder will enable you to save recordings across both drives.

Thanks for this tip/solution.

Dwight

[HTPCGB]

I have to admit that I'm a bit confused too. I thought that mounting a drive to a folder simply makes that folder the root of the drive. That wouldn't really span the drives, or would it? (It would be so much easier if sub added support for multiple recording directories. Hint hint, wink wink. )

[scott]

Anybody else have a suggestion?

I'm sure many, if not most, or the hardcore GBPVR users here have had to span multiple drives. What's actually worked in practice for you?

[elite]

I have mine set up as a spanned drive

Control Panel->Admin Tools->Computer Management

Then: Disk Management

This will help:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsSer...x?mfr=true

I set mine up from two fresh drives so not sure how you'll get on with your existing data...