Yes, I'm considering the 17" now, look very good. But times 3, serious money! Just a good day's trading !!! (Not by me I hasten to add)

LOL, I wish

Seymour
Ths Sharp 17" TFT panels are really excellent. I have just bought lots of these in and was so impressed I decided to keep 3 in black for myself! They have very high contrast and brightness with a nice thin frame and built in speakers underneath. Matched with the new Matrox Parhelia graphics card they provide an almost perfect solution for trading & for general home use. The Matrox demonstration software with the coral reef across 3 screens is stunning!

bought new laptop and it has XP but cant get D4F to download any ideas please.

Croc, that's a recommendation and a half! Just have to persuade my business Partner they're essential so I can get the VAT back!

Hi everyone,

I have to agree with Croc regarding the Sharp monitors, even set to the highest resolution they are positively relaxing to look at. The Matrox Parhelia card is quite amazing as well.

I have spent the best part of a day in front of the PC, and by now I would normally be suffering from a bit of Red eye, but there's no such problem with this set up.

Just as an aside, I went out earlier and left the PC on, too lazy to switch off, I set my Tiny persoanl firewall to 'completely cut me off' from the net. On returning, I accidentally hit standby button instead of shut down. I've never put a PC into Standby before so didn't know how to get out of it.

I turned the PC on and then off, it re-booted fine, but the Matrox power desk kept reporting an unexpected error and refused to load. I then set about re-installing the video drivers etc. thinking I'd somehow messed up my settings with the standby business and got myself into a right pickle. Croc came to my resuce by suggesting I use system restore. And of course it worked a treat.

Afterwards I wondered what it was exactly I did to cause the problem in the first place?.... I think it may be that I forgot to switch the firewall to normal mode before shutting down - The Power desk software obviously uses some of the internal ports to communicate with the card or something. Just thought I'd mention it in case someone else has a similar problem.

Good luck everyone for next week.

Regards,

Pete

I have an old tower pc with a perfectly good hard drive in it running on windows 98.
I have a new tower PC operating under XP.
Can I take the hard drive out of the old machine and plug it in the new one as another hard drive.
If so how and do I need to worry about the two different operating sytems?
Regards
M

Martini, shouldn't be a problem, although you've got to make sure that the master/slave jumpers are set correctly on the drive you're installing.

If it was your main drive on the old PC then it will be set for master. It depends if you're going to install it as a master or slave on the new PC. If you've got one hard drive and a CD on your new PC then they're both probably set up as master (your C: drive definitely will be) on the two different cables.

When you come to install it will just go second on one of the chains. Make sure you insert the cables the right way round as well.

Sorry if this is stuff you already know!

There should be no problems with compatibilty beween the two systems as far as I know.

I'll be doing something very similar when my new PC arrives in about a week!

Biffer
Thanks I use PCs I don't ever look inside them so this is all new stuff to me.
Even what you have said is not clear so could you take the time to explain it at an even more basic level.
I presume I am intending to use the old drive as a slave.
Back if the new drive goes belly up and somewhere to have another back up to type of thing.
Regards
M

NB when there is only one drive it is often set not as master or slave but a third setting which you will therefore possibly need to change on both drives.

P.S. we're talking about DIP switches on the disk drives and not about S&M.

K
Slow down please :)
Say that again

OK. Your PC probably has two IDE connections, as they are termed, on the motherboard. On each connection you can place up to two devices, giving you a maximum of four in total. If you only have a single device on a connection then you will probably have a cable with a socket at either end, one plugging into the motherboard and one into the disk drive. If you have two devices on a connection then you will need a cable with three sockets obviously. One end of the cable will have two sockets more close together than the other. That is the end that goes towards the drives.

When there are two devices on a cable then one needs to be set to Master and one to Slave on its jumpers or DIP switches. When there is only one drive on a cable then the DIP switches on it will be set either to Master or to a third setting. You will need to look up the jumper/DIP switch settings on the web if they are not clearly marked on the drive (you might have a manual for the drive of course).

Generally speaking you should try to even out the devices so that any high volume activities are spread across the two IDE connections. So if you just had the two drives you would probably put one on each IDE connection, whereas if you had a tape drive or CD as well then you would have to think which two devices would be more likely to be in use at the same time, and put them on different cables.

Still clear as mud probably :-)

K
Yep understood the last sentence!
I know what mud is!
I need a nerd.
May have to try to find one locally - this isn't working.
But thanks for trying.
M

Martini, on the back of the HD there are lots of pins, The long group are the ones you connect to your disc drive cable - the big flat one. Usually, next to this are about 8 pins, 4 top & 4 bottom. Two will have a slide-on connector bridging them. If you look on the label on the disc drive it tells you where to put this connector depending on whether you want master or slave drive or cable select. I haven't a clue what cable select is, but move the connector to the slave setting from master and you should be OK. I think you can simply connect the cable to the new HD as well as the existing if you have a spare connector on the cable, otherwise you will need a new one with an extra connector. Make sure the new HD is set to master and the old to slave before booting. I'm not as knowledgeable as Kayak though.

Kayak, sorry to butt in, many hands etc :-)

Seymore
You are now getting down to my level.
However - So I have taken the case of the old PC ( can do that) what am I looking to take out and where on the new PC am I looking to put it in?
You guys would be no good down the Library teaching people which way round a mouse should be held. I am not joking here I had a woman today who had started out using a mouse with cable towards her!
M

Uhmmm, well, you're looking for a little box on the end of a flat cable. Not the floppy drive nor anything else that goes through to the outside panel. You would take that out from the slot it's in and put it in a similar free slot in the new computer. You will also have to open the case of the new one and tell us what's in there.

M

Been there (not the mouse!) so I know how you feel. I've now done this a few times but was totally scared the first time. The existing HD will be connected via a ribbon (flat) cable stretching from the motherboard to the HD and the 3.5" floppy drive. Disconnect (pull out) the flat cable from the HD, disconnect the power cable (the only other (bundle of) cable(s), and unscrew the screws that hold the HD in its cable. There should be a spare housing you can put the new HD into if you want to run both, otherwise your local delaer will have to supply one. You'll also need a few extra screws to fasten the HD in. Having removed the old HD, swap the pins over as described above to change from master to slave, put the new HD in having checked it is set as master, connect the ribbon cable & power supply, fit (if you have space) the old HD in complete with power supply and ribbon cable connections. There are usually a few extra spare power supply connectors floating around inside the case. The cables are all arranged so they won't go on the wrong way round.

I think that's about as much as I can tell you. I have to add a caveat - I've never put 2 HD's in one machine, only put a new in an existing machine, which is a doddle. Best of luck. Let us know if you've any more problems or if you succeed :-)

Ok, my turn, Martini, inside your PC you should see one (big) circuit board. This is the motherboard. You also need to figure out which are the back ends of; your CDRom, your Floppy drive and your hard drive. The first two are easy, just look on the outside of your pc to figure out which is which. Having done that hte hard drive will be the 3rd thing thats probably mounted above the floppy and below the CDrom. Now that you know which is the floppy drive, trace the ribbon cable from it to the motherboard. You can now completely forget about this cable as it plays no part in what you want to do.

Next, look at the CDR and the hard drive. Each will have a wide flat ribbon cable plugged into the back which then plugs onto the motherboard. Important bit; On some PCs the CDR and the hard drive will share one cable. How many can you find?

You should now be able to figure out which bit is the hard drive. The ribbon cable connection to the hard drive may be stif but gently ease it out. Also remove the small plug with a 3 core cable (this is the power lead for the hard drive

Hard drives are a standard shape and size and yours probably has 4 small screws (2 either side) holding it in place. You need to get access to these and undo them. You hard rive can now be slid out backwards.

Good luck

Neil

LOL, looks like theres three of us on the case now :-)

Just to add word of warning - I know you wouldn't do this, but don't unscrew anything on the Hard Drive once it's been removed from its housing by the 4 small screws in the side - or it'll never work again!