Smart Nouveau Computer Tips - Clipboard, Hard Drive Upgrades,

Hi,
That last tip was helpful to a few of you, judging by the mail I received. If you missed it, check it out at http://www.smartnouveau.com/computertips.html. This next set of tips are geared toward the beginner and the techie, respectively.

If any of my tips need more explanation, please let me know. Because not all of you have fast Internet connections, I won't burden your patience by including all the graphics. You can find them on my tips page. If you find these tips helpful, please forward them to your friends or have them check out Smart Nouveau Designs for themselves and sign up at http://www.smartnouveau.com/. These tips are provided absolutely free and can be searched from my home page.

A clipboard is a place to temporarily put data (text or graphics) when you move it from one place, document, or program to another one. The clipboard commands are always found in the Edit menu of any program, can be accessed by use of keyboard commands, or can be found if you right-click on a selection of text or graphic:

Copy (Cntrl-C) means copy selected data from document to clipboard without removing the original data

The clipboard can only hold one piece of information at a time. Any Cut or Copy command replaces current clipboard data with new data, while Paste can be used repeatedly to paste cut or copied information from the clipboard to any insertion point.

The clipboard is emptied whenever the computer shuts down or is rebooted. Also, it is sometimes emptied when the application (program) that contained the original data is shut down. In this case, it may ask you if you want to prevent this from happening.

Paste Special is a way that Windows can preserve the original attributes of data such as graphics. Use Paste Special if the standard Paste does not give the results you expected. This feature is especially powerful with graphics

I use the clipboard mostly for editing when I want to rearrange words or move graphics from one place to another in a document. Another use for the clipboard is when I see text I want to copy on a web site, such as strings of numbers that would be difficult to memorize otherwise, such as URLs or registration numbers. Then I just open up a Notepad document and paste it into there and save it. This is also handy when you want to send multiple emails to the same person. Just copy the email address used in the first email and paste into all the subsequent emails.

You can also cut, copy, and paste files from your Windows Explorer or My Computer, though I prefer to drag and drop files between windows.

Hard drives are getting larger and prices are getting smaller. So if you are finding your computer a little cramped for space, now might be a good time to upgrade. Will your computer take it? If it is at least a Pentium, then chances are, your computer can use it. If you are running Windows 95 then do yourself a favor and upgrade to Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows 2000, or Windows XP. Don't waste your time on Windows ME, it has too many bugs and they do not intend to fix it.

when picking out your drive, ask the service tech how many of a particular type come back for replacement. Usually, if a drive fails, it will either fail in a short time, or after a few years of use. If lots fail in a short time, then you can bet lots will fail later (After the warranty is up). This is called the "bathtub" curve because the failure curve chart on electronics looks like a bathtub - high at the beginning, high at the end, and low in the middle. Pick the best quality/throughput/maximum storage size you can afford. Nowadays, you can get a good 140Gigabyte drive for around $200.

Next, go for the drive with the best throughput, measured in Mb per second. This is how fast the drive can take or send data to the computer. This can be improved by adding a "buffer", usually 2 Mb up to 8 Mb of RAM built into the drive to help it process the data. The bigger the buffer, the faster the throughput. Spin RPMs affect the throughput, but not enough to justify the added cost. 7500 rpm is enough for good throughput if you have a 8 Mb buffer. 10,000 rpm will cost you sometimes $20 more for the same drive without the buffer. Now if all that techie stuff gives you a headache, then get either a Western Digital or Maxtor (I swear that I don't own their stock).

Now you have your new drive, you want to install it into your computer in a temporary manner to transfer your existing data to the new drive so you can remove or reassign your old drive:

Open your case and look for your hard drive. Make a drawing of how the old drive is connected and where the jumpers are set. Use the drawing you made in case of difficulty you can put your computer back into operating order. THIS STEP IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT IF YOU ARE NEW AT THIS. You can always return your computer to working condition if the process doesn't work.

Connect the new drive to the second plug on the same connector ribbon as your first drive (Remember that pin one on the drive is connected to the striped side of the ribbon) and move
the jumpers on the back of the drives to set both drives to "CS" for "Cable Select". For CS, connect the old drive to the end of the cable (shown on the left) and the new drive to the middle connector of the cable, so that the New drive is "Slave". If the CS option is not available for the old drive, set the new drive to "CS" and be sure it is on the middle plug of the ribbon.Master is the first drive connected, which boots as drive 0 (your C: drive) Master can also be used for single drive setups.

Slave is the second drive connected, which boots as your D: or E: drive. You can't have a slave drive without a master CS means Cable Select.

Master or slave is determined by where on the ribbon cable you connect the drive. This is helpful if you want to swap master and slave without changing jumpers.

This terminology also works great for adding a CD-RW drive or "Burner". Make one Master and the old CD the Slave. Don't mix a CD and hard drive on the same cable unless you don't mind slowing down your computer.

Next, connect the power and boot up your computer. Notice whether both drives are recognized in the black screen (called the CMOS) as you boot up. If only one or none of the drives are recognized, consult your drawing, put everything back, and be sure you can now boot up to Windows before you start over.

If your computer boots smoothly, you are in great shape. You won't be able to "see" your new drive from My Computer yet, so don't worry.

Next, reboot using the Drive Image recovery disk #1 that you made when you installed Drive Image on your system earlier. Follow directions to insert disk #2. In the Drive Image program window, choose "Disk to Disk" and set it up to copy everything on the old disk to the new disk and to use up all the space on the drive. (Read Drive Image manual for more details). Set it to copy and wait for the copy to finish. Shut the computer down. Remove the old drive, move the new drive to the end of the connector (so it is Master) and reboot. You should have exactly the configuration you started with on your computer, except that your current hard drive is now the new one. Your old drive can be reformatted and used as a Slave for backups.

Jeff Sheets
Smart Nouveau Designs
sheetsj@smartnouveau.com
http://www.smartnouveau.com

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