old computer as external hardrive?

[pud]

I have an old computer Im not using. The idea came to be that it could be a storage unit for media I get to play back on my TV. Now the old computer has 2 USB inputs so as far as i know that should make things easier.
I have no idea how to go about this, and what the best way is. If I can use it as an external only hardrive, then I dont need an operating system like windows on it do I?
Heres a clearer picture of what Im going for.
I want to use my "new" computer to download media to my "old" computer so that I can access it off the "old" one with my "new" ones operating system and play it off my TV.

That sounds confusing to me, hopefully someone knows what im talking about hah
thanks.

[pud]

FWIW the old computer is a Pentium III, 514MHz, 128MB ram.
The new one is a compaq with a AMD Sempron 3400+ processor, 994 MHz, 448MB ram.

This is the info I get when I right click on "My Computer" under the general heading in properties.
But when I open properties on my C drive it says only 142 MB ram total, whats goin on there also?

[Nhaz]

FWIW the old computer is a Pentium III, 514MHz, 128MB ram.
The new one is a compaq with a AMD Sempron 3400+ processor, 994 MHz, 448MB ram.

This is the info I get when I right click on "My Computer" under the general heading in properties.
But when I open properties on my C drive it says only 142 MB ram total, whats goin on there also?


I'm pretty sure the p3's hard drives are tiny compared to the sizes we deal with today. a P3 is a decade old its hard drives are going to be in the range of 200 meg - 500 megs in size. Maybe upwards to a single gig. todays drives are 250-1000 gigs (a terabyte)


As to your 3400 Semperon Im pretty sure that's a 2 gig processor. If its running at only 994 MHZ its possible its setup wrong. It could also be the wrong ram for the machine and its slowing down for the ram.

Honestly. I do not think its worth the effort.

There are external hard drive cases available that run off a usb cable. They are not as cheap as I would like.

But, In the long run. Its cheaper just to buy a new hardrive for your existing computer. You will get more space and much faster access. You can get 500+ gigs of hard drive for like $120 around here. (Canadian dollars)

And its hard to stay on top of that price since every time you turn around the drives are getting larger and cheaper.

If you are really set to make the old computer a storage only machine. The easiest way is to leave the existing operating system in place and buy a pair of ultra cheap Ethernet networking cards. The USB in that old machine is going to be fairly slow, if it works at all. and trying to get those two to talk across a usb cable while it sounds easy is prolly going to be a pain.

Your Compaq may already have a Ethernet built in on the backside.
http://www.featurepics.com/StockPictures/Connector-535803.aspx that is the cable and connector for a Ethernet connection. check the back of both machines. It wont be on a tail like the pic is =>

[pud]

As to your 3400 Semperon Im pretty sure that's a 2 gig processor. If its running at only 994 MHZ its possible its setup wrong. It could also be the wrong ram for the machine and its slowing down for the ram.

alright, what does this mean and how do i check and/or correct it?

[mjonesjr]

What you can do is hook it up to an internet connection and then share the hard drive in it. You will still need an operating system. Once the drive is shared, use your IP address for that PC to install the drive on another PC attached to the same internet connection. You can use that as a shared drive to save files on.

[pud]

ive got 16GB of free disk space on the old computer...so its as good as the better USB thumb drives now lol.
my new one has 130GB left....
doing some math, I went online and found a 1TB external drive and it said it would hold 1500 hours of video...if 1000GB hold 1500hours, 16GB should hold 240 hours no? Thats like 160 movies.

So could I designate 16-20GB on my new computer, in its own drive for music only?. I have no idea if what im asking is possible or not....but I just noticed on my old computer theres a C, E, and F drive. The c drive holds the OS with a little buffer room, and the E&F drives are basically empty...could I do this on my new comp and designate an amount of disk space for it and then use it as a media drive?

[mjonesjr]

You can eliminate a lot of the programs on the old computer to free up more space. You will only need the operating system on the old computer.

You can eliminate the E & F drives on the old computer to free up more space as well. They are more than likely just partitions on the 1 hard drive the computer has installed.

You can get a new larger hard drive for the old computer and re-install the operating system for about $40. A local shop by me sells 500GB IDE hard drives for $40. When you put in your operating system, it will take up about 15-20GB leaving you with roughly 460GB.

[Nhaz]

Wall of text ! enjoy!


Well, that semperon processor is possibly running at half speed. its rather hard to determine exactly why.

First its possible that its actually running at the correct speed and the OS is mis-reporting the details. Yes i've seen that before. Ive seen windows mis report all kinds of stuff dealing with the actual hardware of the machine. everything from the memory size hard drive size as well as speed.


Things to check. If you know how to access the bios on that machine, Usually holding down f8 on a powerup of the machine but not always sometimes its a hold down the delete key sometimes its f5. the machine itself should be telling you on a powerup.

It will list on the screen Hold down such and such key to access the bios.

There should be a cpu management area for you to look under. Don't go changing anything in there. not yet =>

things you want to know in there are

bus speed. ram Freq. in mhz. Cpu speed. and the bus multiplier.

Bus speed: this is the main highway in your machine the bus speed is its speed limit.

The ram MHZ is important. this is the speed the ram is running at. it hard to say what ram you have in there at this point. or what it can do. But rams seriously picky about its speed. you push it too fast even slightly and that machines going to crash and crash and crash and crash. sometimes badly enough to burn out the ram.

CPU speed is usually based off the multiplier of the bus speed. and it can move far faster then the bus.

Im taking a guess at this since I don't have your machine infront of me. The bus speeds going to be about 333 Mhz its possible its a 400 MHz.

Chances are you have either ddr 333 or ddr 400 for ram. either in a single 512 stick or a couple 256 sticks.

If you have Mixed memory sticks like 2 128 meg ddr 333 MHZ and 1 256 meg ddr 400 MHZ. you are going to have a issue.

Memory stick speeds Cannot be mixed. The machine Will default to the slowest speed. fast ram can run slow. but slow ram Cannot run fast. The computer will not report that there are 2 memory stick speeds.

If the machine is being forced to run at a lower speed to compensate for the ram it can and will affect the overall cpu speed of the machine.

The only way to find that out is to open the machine and examine the ram itself. Do Not play inside your computer without shutting it down and making damn sure you are well grounded.

If the House is actually grounded right(many old houses are Not) Leave the main power Plug plugged In the wall and the computer and, make sure your hand is holding the metal case while you are poking in the machine.

You aren't opening the power supply its separately sealed inside the computer case.

The metal casing is grounded to the power supply which inturn if the house is grounded properly is grounded to your water pipe or to a grounding rod. By grabbing the casing you are dumping any excess static you can generate just by moving around.

Ever grab a light switch and get zapped? thats static grounding out. or equalizing a charge anyways.

Small amounts of static electricity can and will cook the machine. Usually it cooks the ram.

[pud]

operating system
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
version 5.1.2600
service pack 2.0
language 1033

System Information
BIOS version 3.31
Help and Support version 1.0.0


processor
AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3400+
version x86 Family 15 Model 47 Stepping 2
current speed 1990 MHz
cache size 128 KB

memory
Maximum capacity 2.00 GB
Installed memory 512.00 MB
Memory Slot 1 256.00 MB
Memory Slot 2 256.00 MB
Memory Slot 3 0.00 MB
Memory Slot 4 0.00 MB

hard drive
total capacity: 149.03 GB
sum of hard disks ( C: D: )
used: 16.01 GB
free: 133.02 GB



does this tell anyone anything?

[mjonesjr]

You have 133GB of hard drive space to use.

I would network the computer to use it as a "server". Create a folder on the desktop you want to save the pictures, music, etc in and then share that folder. Then access that folder on the new PC using the IP address of the old PC.

If you search for "folder sharing in XP over a network" on Google, it should give you a walk through.

[Twizzler09]

ive got 16GB of free disk space on the old computer...so its as good as the better USB thumb drives now lol.
my new one has 130GB left....
doing some math, I went online and found a 1TB external drive and it said it would hold 1500 hours of video...if 1000GB hold 1500hours, 16GB should hold 240 hours no? Thats like 160 movies.


No. I have no idea where the companies come up with things like that, but its a load of tosh. Most movies, when compressed down into a .avi (a common video file) end up around 700 megabytes a piece. 16 gigabytes might net you 20-22 movies at most. But the file size can vary greatly, depending on the final quality and how much compression was actually done. Seen some full-length movies end up as a 1.9GIGAbyte .avi file. So you may not even get that many on just 16 gigs.

(Just as a reference, a typical DVD if ripped into an .iso with no file compression, typically ends up in the 4.5GB+ range depending on the physical DVD type.)

Also, by your math. 1000gigs holds 1.5x the amount of space it has in video time. 1,000 x 1.5 = 1500 hours. So 16 x 1.5 = 24 hours. Not 240.

(I'm just nit-picking at this point, but a megabyte is technically 1024 Kilobytes, a Gigabyte is 1024 Megabytes, a TERABYTE is 1024 gigabytes. 1000 isn't the proper measurement, but is close enough for most people.)

That doesnt matter anyway, because of the varying nature of compressed/uncompressed video files and the insanely varying sizes associated with them, its impossible to accurately predict how much video footage you can stuff into any given amount of space.

Now, on to the original topic. If you really want to keep your old computer and use it to store things, you should setup a home network. Just use window's networking wizard program, and enter in the same "workgroup" name on both computers, and voila! Make sure the drives on the old computer are set to be network share-able, and on the new machine double click on "My Network Places" and they should be listed there, easily accessible.

You will need a router for that, though.

(A side note, when making the old comp's drive network accessible, make sure you set it to allow network users to read/write otherwise you'll have trouble using the drives properly, especially if you intend on adding to/deleting from those drives at any point.)

[mjonesjr]

Now, on to the original topic. If you really want to keep your old computer and use it to store things, you should setup a home network. Just use window's networking wizard program, and enter in the same "workgroup" name on both computers, and voila! Make sure the drives on the old computer are set to be network share-able, and on the new machine double click on "My Network Places" and they should be listed there, easily accessible.

(A side note, when making the old comp's drive network accessible, make sure you set it to allow network users to read/write otherwise you'll have trouble using the drives properly, especially if you intend on adding to/deleting from those drives at any point.)
Hmmmm, exactly what I have been saying........

[fleck]

No. I have no idea where the companies come up with things like that, but its a load of tosh. Most movies, when compressed down into a .avi (a common video file) end up around 700 megabytes a piece. 16 gigabytes might net you 20-22 movies at most. But the file size can vary greatly, depending on the final quality and how much compression was actually done. Seen some full-length movies end up as a 1.9GIGAbyte .avi file. So you may not even get that many on just 16 gigs.

(Just as a reference, a typical DVD if ripped into an .iso with no file compression, typically ends up in the 4.5GB+ range depending on the physical DVD type.)

All the numbers you just mentioned are up to the individual ripper/encoder. The length of the video doesn't determine the size of the rip, it's based on the bitrate the encoder chooses which is usually based on a standard set by the 'scene'.

The reason they picked 700MB as the standard to compress movies into was because that's what you can fit on a CD and movies from 1.5 to 2 hours looked decent enough to be watchable at that size. Sometimes they go with two 700MB files if the movie is really long or just if the ripper/encoder feels like delivering a high quality rip.

Most ripped DVDs are 4.5GB because that is the available space on a standard non-dual-layer DVDR. The DVDs that the movies come in have pretty much always been dual-layer DVDs capable of holding 9GB of data, and people have been shrinking them to fit into single-layer DVDRs, since dual-layer burning is a relatively new concept.

[superdave1984]

Unless the HD in the old computer is more than say 80GB you are wasting your time. Best thing would be to take the old drive out, put in an external enclosure and use it as storage. You can buy a 1TB external drive for a reasonable price. An enclosure for your old drive is about $25 or so.

[Twizzler09]

I got what you were saying after reading it over a time or two, terminology is all wrong.

There will be no server, you do not use IP addresses to install drives, an internet connection is not required for this to function. Let me Illustrate.

MS Paint, ohh yeah!! >.<

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/twizzler09/simplenet.jpg

The Modem and Internet are optional to make the network function. All he has to do is plug both computers into the router, set the TCP/IP settings to Auto (The Router will hand out IP Adresses to both computers as to operate properly within the mini-network), and then enter the workgroup names on both computers, verify the drives on the old machine are shared and read/writeable, done.

[Twizzler09]

All the numbers you just mentioned are up to the individual ripper/encoder. The length of the video doesn't determine the size of the rip, it's based on the bitrate the encoder chooses which is usually based on a standard set by the 'scene'.

The reason they picked 700MB as the standard to compress movies into was because that's what you can fit on a CD and movies from 1.5 to 2 hours looked decent enough to be watchable at that size. Sometimes they go with two 700MB files if the movie is really long or just if the ripper/encoder feels like delivering a high quality rip.

Most ripped DVDs are 4.5GB because that is the available space on a standard non-dual-layer DVDR. The DVDs that the movies come in have pretty much always been dual-layer DVDs capable of holding 9GB of data, and people have been shrinking them to fit into single-layer DVDRs, since dual-layer burning is a relatively new concept.


I'm aware of this. But the companies assume the general public is not. And in most cases they are right.

[fleck]

Unless the HD in the old computer is more than say 80GB you are wasting your time. Best thing would be to take the old drive out, put in an external enclosure and use it as storage. You can buy a 1TB external drive for a reasonable price. An enclosure for your old drive is about $25 or so.

Well I think pud has the right idea anyway. While playing a video game, I can't download something too fast or it will make the video game lag like a mofo. That's why I'm soon setting up a Linux box with all the storage space in it, all the apps I'll use to browse, download and chat, and one Windows box with all the power for gaming and HD video playback, but very little storage at a high speed. I'll be running two solid state 32GB drives in RAID0 to equal 64GB of (very fast) space for Windows, which should be more than plenty for everything I'll need. Then I'll be downloading stuff on the Linux box all the time, while playing games and watching the stuff I downloaded on that Linux box in my Windows box.

I think it's a good idea, in the case that there is concern in the performance of the system that will be under main use.

[pud]

yeah, ive concluded that the old rig is too much of a pos to waste time with. That and i dont even have an ethernet plug in the back of it and everything i need to do to make it work costs money...so for a little more money i can have an external usb drive with 100x more space.

[Twizzler09]

The USB drives are a little cashy, but worth it if you just want more storage space on-demand without having to have a second machine sitting around driving your power bill up.

[97RangerXLT]

Unless the HD in the old computer is more than say 80GB you are wasting your time. Best thing would be to take the old drive out, put in an external enclosure and use it as storage. You can buy a 1TB external drive for a reasonable price. An enclosure for your old drive is about $25 or so.

I got what you were saying after reading it over a time or two, terminology is all wrong.

There will be no server, you do not use IP addresses to install drives, an internet connection is not required for this to function. Let me Illustrate.

MS Paint, ohh yeah!! >.<

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/twizzler09/simplenet.jpg

The Modem and Internet are optional to make the network function. All he has to do is plug both computers into the router, set the TCP/IP settings to Auto (The Router will hand out IP Adresses to both computers as to operate properly within the mini-network), and then enter the workgroup names on both computers, verify the drives on the old machine are shared and read/writeable, done.

The USB drives are a little cashy, but worth it if you just want more storage space on-demand without having to have a second machine sitting around driving your power bill up.


That pretty much covers it. yank the drive, it will be probably no bigger than 20gb. you might get a 40gb if it is a higher end machine, I had an old P3 hp computer with a stock 40gb and win 98...Get the drive enclosure, you will then have a quick storage for miscelaneous files for about 25 bucks.

scrap the rest of the computer, there is nothing in it worth salvaging...


If it boots up, here is how you can tell how big the harddrive is:

go to windows explorer, and look at all the drives. if it only has one partition, it will be likely the C:\ drive. right click and select properties. it shoudl tell you how much space you have on it. if there is more than one partition, right click each and add them up. If the drive is less than 20 gb, I would not even bother with buying an enclosure unless you want stuff off of it or just want to play around with it.

by the way, harddrives have some kick ass magnets in them...

AJ

[Nhaz]

So before you go and scrap your old machine. functional old machines are not a complete waste of space and power.

I tend to use mine for specific things like dos games that simply dont run on newer machines and or win 98 games that dont work either.

although my old machine is a 486dx2 40mhz with 24megs ram and a 60 meg hard drive. and a early voodoo card!

[Twizzler09]

speaking of old games....Carmageddon!!! Most hilarious game EVER! Last I knew, it also ran on XP...

[addiman09]

The easiest way to do this is: Take the old 16GB HD out and plug it into the secondary slot on the new computers motherboard. This will create a extra hardrive that you do not have to install a OS system on, it will just be empty space that you can put things in to, when you say your E: and F: drive; this is your new computers HD with small portions of that HD set back to be a recovery system. They are not extra space, they are used when your computer crashes to back up every file into a compressed zip folder and made to fit into that HD only. You could then remove that old HD and take it wherever you want to, that is if there is another computer around.

[Psychopete]

speaking of old games....Carmageddon!!! Most hilarious game EVER! Last I knew, it also ran on XP...

LOL, that game is a classic. Sucks they went to Zombies in the later versions... Carmageddon II was pretty fun still tho. Rise of the Triad was also a classic brutal game, I still have the original game CD.

Nhaz, if you were closer, I have a working 486 board and chip, ram and small hard drives that I'd just give you, LOL. I think one is 500MB and the other might be 750MB - 1GB. I think the issue at hand was I don't have an AT power supply, wouldn't boot from CD rom, I have no more floppy drives that work without ruining the disk, and I don't have time to wait for it to boot. :icon_twisted: I need to start throwing this old crap in the garbage...

Pete

[mixwell]

I didn't see it mentioned but why not just buy an internal drive and make it a slave on your new computer ?? Assuming you have the IDE connections available still ? You can probably purchase a large capacity internal driver for much less than an external with more storage... ?? Personally thats what I would do if I needed the space.

[kunar]

The easiest way to do this is: Take the old 16GB HD out and plug it into the secondary slot on the new computers motherboard. This will create a extra hardrive that you do not have to install a OS system on, it will just be empty space that you can put things in to, when you say your E: and F: drive; this is your new computers HD with small portions of that HD set back to be a recovery system. They are not extra space, they are used when your computer crashes to back up every file into a compressed zip folder and made to fit into that HD only. You could then remove that old HD and take it wherever you want to, that is if there is another computer around.

I didn't see it mentioned but why not just buy an internal drive and make it a slave on your new computer ?? Assuming you have the IDE connections available still ? You can probably purchase a large capacity internal driver for much less than an external with more storage... ?? Personally thats what I would do if I needed the space.

by far the best way to do this. there is a couple issues though. the first is that if the new computer is still under warranty, they wouldnt be happy with you poking around inside. the other is that the 'old' hard drive is most definately an IDE drive, and depending on the age of the 'new' computer, it may only use SATA drives. if the new computer is old enough that you can put the older drive in, its pretty simple. sent the primary drive as master (using the jumpers on the drive) and set the secondary drive to slave. it should boot without issues. save anything important off of the smaller drive by moving it to the primary drive, then format the secondary drive.

[pud]

this is the 'new' computer
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/hp-compaq-presario-sr1620nx/4507-3118_7-31589079.html?tag=mncol;psum

Ive found out...after disassembling it completely to snoop around... that my "old" computer, a Blaster PC by empac is actually a kind of unique beast. It has an FM transmitter, optical audio out, and came with a remote (which i didnt have). So now its sitting in pieces in a box in my storage room and I have no idea how to put it back together lol.

[rboyer]

You can always pick up a 10/100 network card for like 15 dollars and then install naslite on it and set the drive up as a NFS share. So 15 dollars and 20 minutes to set up naslite and you'll have the drive shared on your network.

[ejholmgren]

:icon_rofl:

[1stHand]

new fire wire external drive