# WD Caviar Black 2TB as boot drive for Windows 7 32-bit?



## Chappy (Oct 10, 2011)

I'll be replacing my WD VelociRaptor 300GB for 2TB Caviar Black. Anyone here have used it as a Boot drive? I'll be installing Win 7 Ultimate 32-bit. Is there any problems, that I need to know before I sell & replace my Raptor?

Thanks in Advance!


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## erocker (Oct 10, 2011)

Nope, it's a regular HDD and there should be no issue. What are your concerns?


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## qubit (Oct 10, 2011)

It'll work fine. I wouldn't be surprised if the performance is actually somewhat higher than the VelociRaptor, either - check out a review or two.


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## Chappy (Oct 10, 2011)

None, I'm just worried it might have problems or issues so I need to make sure before I sell it. For assurance. Thanks - erocker

Your right qubit I've found a review that they've regret buying a raptor because of this.
Thanks - qubit


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## lilhasselhoffer (Oct 10, 2011)

Chappy said:


> None, I'm just worried it might have problems or issues so I need to make sure before I sell it. For assurance. Thanks - erocker
> 
> Your right qubit I've found a review that they've regret buying a raptor because of this.
> Thanks - qubit



You won't have any issues.  The potential problem is with 3TB HDDs.  Just stay away from them until you've got a UEFI based ROM and you won't have any problems.


*Problem is with boot.  As a storage drive you'll only need the knowledge to use a specific formatting to get the maximum storage space.


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## hat (Oct 10, 2011)

I just gotta ask... why 32 bit? You're already way over the 4GB address space limit with your currently existing 4GB system ram, plus whatever's on that GTX280 of yours. Try installing the 64 bit version.


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## LagunaX (Oct 10, 2011)

Yeah I would agree Windows 7 x64 is very nice and you won't get the ram limitations from 3.25gb minus whatever your videocard ram is. 
So unless you need to pay for a new OS, x64 is the way to go.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Oct 10, 2011)

x32 license works on x64 theres no reason to use x32 with Windows 7


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## Chappy (Oct 20, 2011)

Been staying in 32-bit for compatibility issues in my ancient programing software's. Guess I'll switch later after I upgrade my RAM.


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## m4gicfour (Oct 20, 2011)

Chappy said:


> Been staying in 32-bit for compatibility issues in my ancient programing software's. Guess I'll switch later after I upgrade my RAM.



You have Win7 Ultimate. The 32bit key will work with 64bit. 

Does your programming software work with XP? If so you can use Win7x64 with XP Mode (info). (download link) Win7 Professional and Ultimate are eligible to download this fully liscenced, virtualized copy of windows XP. Works great, for most things, so long as you don't need D3D support in the VM.

If you already have an installed copy of Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate (32 or 64 bit) you can download XP mode now to find out if your software works with it, and hence whether you can do the new install in 64-bit.


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## Goodman (Oct 20, 2011)

You do video editing?
Because you name your system movie maker if so you would greatly benefit using Win7 64bit & more ram


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## twilyth (Oct 20, 2011)

When using such a big drive to boot from, I would create a boot partition of at least 60 gig.  I use 120gig since I tend to accumulate a lot of crap in my documents and download directories.

Doing this makes it much easier to do image backups of the boot drive/partition.  And there really isn't any substitute for an image backup if you want your system back the it was post haste.


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## Chappy (Nov 7, 2011)

Goodman said:


> You do video editing?
> Because you name your system movie maker if so you would greatly benefit using Win7 64bit & more ram



Yeah 
I'd really benefit a LOT since Adobe After Effects CS4 uses RAM preview and stuff. But maybe I'll upgrade my RAM later and move up in 64-bit. (My wallet is currently really light right now  )



m4gicfour said:


> You have Win7 Ultimate. The 32bit key will work with 64bit.
> 
> Does your programming software work with XP? If so you can use Win7x64 with XP Mode (info). (download link) Win7 Professional and Ultimate are eligible to download this fully liscenced, virtualized copy of windows XP. Works great, for most things, so long as you don't need D3D support in the VM.
> 
> If you already have an installed copy of Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate (32 or 64 bit) you can download XP mode now to find out if your software works with it, and hence whether you can do the new install in 64-bit.



No, I only have Windows 7 Home Premium (I think the license won't work in Ultimate/Pro). And Yes, my programming software only works in XP 32-bit. (My university's at fault )



twilyth said:


> When using such a big drive to boot from, I would create a boot partition of at least 60 gig.  I use 120gig since I tend to accumulate a lot of crap in my documents and download directories.
> 
> Doing this makes it much easier to do image backups of the boot drive/partition.  And there really isn't any substitute for an image backup if you want your system back the it was post haste.



Hey, your right; never thought of that. Can I still partition my drive? Since I already have the OS installed. Also I think backing it up after the newly fresh OS was installed was more better. I already populated the OS with games, adobe suites, encoding software's and stuffs... Never had a whole OS backup but my MOBO GA-EP45-DQ6 have this recovery thing in the start up.


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## twilyth (Nov 7, 2011)

Chappy said:


> Hey, your right; never thought of that. Can I still partition my drive? Since I already have the OS installed. Also I think backing it up after the newly fresh OS was installed was more better. I already populated the OS with games, adobe suites, encoding software's and stuffs... Never had a whole OS backup but my MOBO GA-EP45-DQ6 have this recovery thing in the start up.


If you're on W7, then you should be able to do it from the disk manager.  Of course you can only use blank space for the new partition, so depending on what you meant, maybe the answer is no.  You can try using all of the free space and then moving things over.  Once you do that, you can resize the boot partition.  Kind of a pain in the ass, but that should work.

edit:  As you know, re-partioning can be a risky process.  You never know when the power might go out or get a BSOD.  So you really need to have a complete backup before attempting this.  At the very least, I would have a UPS for the computer and monitor.

Also when I say "all", you really need to leave at least a hundred meg or so free on the boot partition.


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