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    Can I tell which hard drive is which?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Danja, May 16, 2009.

  1. Danja

    Danja Notebook Evangelist

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    I wasn't quite sure which forum to put this in, but here goes. My Gateway has two hard drives in it, and I just cloned the non-OS drive onto a higher capacity hard drive. I now want to put in the new hard drive, but I don't want to take out the drive which contains the OS as I've just recovered from random bootloader error and I really don't feel like messing with any more tricks that Windows throws at me. Is there a way that I can physically tell which hard drive is which, or does it have to be guess and check?
     
    Danja, May 16, 2009
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  2. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    My Computer ? Manage > Disk Management will show which logical drives are on which physical disk.

    But, if the two original HDDs are the same make / model then you may need to revert to trial and error unless the computer's manual clear shows the physical locations of disk 0 and disk 1.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, May 16, 2009
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  3. Danja

    Danja Notebook Evangelist

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    Yup, two 160GB seagates. I figured it out though; Gateway was kind enough to label them Disk 1 and Disk 2, and I correctly assumed that the OS was on Disk 1. Everything up and running; thanks for the help.
     
    Danja, May 16, 2009
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