Two Harddrives...

[An-225]

Currently, I'm running a Dell Dimension 8600. It has a Pentium 4 (3.2GHz), and certain parts have been upgraded (now with 2GB of memory and an Nvidia 8800GT).

Obviously, this isn't a great computer by todays standards, so I'm upgrading to an i7 (either 965 or 975 depending on how long I can wait) with 6GB of memory and a GTX285.

I plan to have two harddrives - two WD3000 VelociRaptors.

My primary HDD will have the OS installed on it, along with a few other simulations. The other will have only FSX installed on it.

Is this a feasible way to run FSX? If something goes wrong with my OS, can I simply reformat the primary HDD and have FSX safe?

Input is appreciated.

[harleyman]

Yes you can run FSX on a second drive.Personally I find that it runs better off the OS drive.

However, If one drive fails,like your OS drive,FSX is not safe as its tagged to the regestry on C/...... However you can backup your regestry beforehand after FSX and all is installed if you know how,and simply put the backuped regestry back in after an OS reinstall...

That runs fine about 80% of the time..But is not 100% failsafe

[An-225]

Hmm, in the case that FSX runs better off the OS drive (which itself contains my logbook and flight plans...), I'm going to ditch the second WD Raptor, also due in part to the complexity issues.

Didn't consider the registry issue before, thanks Harleyman.

[Alexraptor]

Actually i would highly recommend running FSX on a second drive, but not a Raptor.
Giving FSX its own drive can help a lot fixing some blurries and eliminating stutters.

[An-225]

I'm now torn on the choice of hard-drive(s). It seems a lot of people have had failures with Western Digital, but the Seagate reviews on Newegg are scarcely better.

It does seem like Seagate is more reliable. I flew with my Barracuda to Japan and back, with it wrapped in nothing but bubble rap and considering my other crappy parts, it loads textures pretty well.

[wombat666]

Raptor's are the way to go.
Never had one fail on me, and that includes the first pair which ran almost non-stop for over 4 years.

However, I'm looking at setting up a pair of Intel 80GB SSD drives, one for the OS and the other for Sims.
Not a cheap option and I'll still be using a remote backup drive.

[hey_moe]

I have FSX and other games on a separate WD 320 HD with no problems. I installed the OS on that hard drive with no security or anything else. You can tweak the registry and have a fast gaming drive.Doing it this way you can choose what OS you want to install a long with your games.I wouldn't matter if you OS failed on your main frame then..Mike

[FLighT01]

I use a separate V-rap for FSX and have no issues, and it never gets defragmented. I don't know why, but I haven't had a single FSX file show up as framented in O & O since completing reinstall of FSX and all addons several months ago on its' own drive. Of course if one of the 2 drives goes down...., but then, 11 years and 6 different machines later I've never had a drive fail, or any hardware that I can remember other than an addon sound card which I think was defective when installed, supposedly it was new. So I've been fortunate there, every time I think I have a hardware problem I usually determine, after much banging of my head against the wall, that it's a driver or software (as n a program) related/induced problem. Now software failures including OS's, well, that's been a different story for me.

[harleyman]

I meant to Run FSX *OFF* the OS drive..Rereading that it seemed confusing..Sorry..

Hey Moe has a great idea too..Never done that...Must be a dual boot then..

I have 2) Raptors and never had a problem...

However...the new seagates with a 32 MB cache are hot too...i have a 650 one and itg cheap and great and would be fine for FSX or anything else too..

[Bjoern]

I've bought a second - faster - HDD a while ago, which now serves as my OS and FSX drive.
No problems with this configuration.

The biggest advantage of keeping FSX on a seperate HDD/partition is that it isn't affected by eventual reinstallations of the OS.
Okay, you'll have to "fix" the broken registration, but the rest is reinstalling SimConnect and adding registry path, which all in all is way less time consuming than a complete reinstallation.

[An-225]

I intend to move to Windows 7 when it arrives, so perhaps 2 HDDs is the way to go. I'm not exactly comfortable with shifting the registry around, but when the time comes, I should be able to do it.

What >exactly< are the risks of using the old registry?

[harleyman]

The only real risk is that it will not work....LOL And a reinstall is needed...

Personally with a nrw HDD I just reinstall everything...

I save my favorites list and log books from FSX and have my e maik save all...

I don't like fooling in the regestry myself...

[Dangerous Beans]

Do a search at Avsim for fsx_reg_utility.zip that should fix the registry for you automatically.

[Cactuskid]

I also run FSX on a separate 300Gb V-Rap with no problems. My OS is on two 150Gb Raptor X's in RAID 1, and I keep data and other programs on a 640Gb Caviar. This set-up has worked well for me, and in case something bad happens with the OS, I can salvage FSX just the way it was.