Ok, well that Gateway special seems good enough that I want to replace the main computer I use now, which is actually a 1U server.

Now the 9GB SCSI is nice, but I have a bunch of videos, pictures, mp3s that I've made/downloaded and what I was wondering was, how would it work if instead of transfering all the crap over to the new computer, I just pulled the HD off my current computer and somehow installed it as the second HD in the new one?

I don't know the implications of doing this and my greatest extent of installing anything was replacing the CD-ROM with a CD-RW drive (which wasn't all that difficult).

I'd then either pickup another HD for the 1U or maybe just sell it without a HD (figure people might want something more than what I'd put in?). I dunno if this will make it harder to sell or what, but that's along the lines of the thought at the moment.

Any comments on any of this? Mostly about adding the HD from the 1U to the new computer?

Actually Chicken,

if you were to make the new one a slave and the old one a master just copy the slave into the master and in like an hour you have everything, thats an hour for disconnecting the hd and everything else....

fairly simple

The motherboard (know which one the gateway will come with?) has a scsi controller somewhere, probably just within the motherboard... and it should also come with separate IDE connector on the mobo as well.

now is the HD from the 1U us an IDE interface or is it another SCSI?

if its a scsi, you can definitely set it as a slave to the new HD that will come with the gateway and as TheComputerGuy said, you can transfer all the files in between but with great speed ;)

if its an IDE controlled HD, then set it as slave and connect it to the IDE interface... if the mobo doesn't have an IDE conntroller, then you should go get an IDE controller PCI card. just connect it to an empty PCI slot, install it, then connect the IDE cable to it along with the HD from the 1U.

most important thing to remember is that you'll have to physically set the old HD (since you'll be using the 9gb SCSI as master) to slave... i don't know what kind of HD it is, but it usually shows how you set it to slave on either the side with all the connectors. (look on top of the drive as well, it should display something to help you)

remember that your BIOS should auto-recognize the slave... if not, then you have to go into Bios and set slave HD... pretty self explanatory from there

edit>>
well, gateway usually gives you an option to choose what interface you want the HD to use... but its not displaying IDE as an option... and the controller that comes with the gateway
... Integrated Dual Channel Ultra160 SCSI...doesn't seem like an onboard mobo controller so there should be IDE connectors you can just add any IDE HD to :)
good luck :)

This is the mainboard that the Gateway tech said was in that server.

http://www.asus.com/products/Motherboard/Pentiumpro/Cur-dls/index.html

Best Regards,

Just a note on this Gateway server:

The LSI 64/32-bit Ultra2 SCSI that comes on this board does not have Linux drivers for it. (at least there are no drivers for Redhat 6.2 or 7.0).

I know it works fine for FreeBSD 4.2.

Also, the servers do not seem to like to have soft reboots. If you need a reboot with these Gateways, you will need to have a pair of remote hands at the NOC to do a hard reset.

Downloaded PDF manual from ASUS site for board and found the following information .....


SCSI DRIVERS:

"LSI SYM53C896 SCSI drivers are bundeled under Linux 6.x system. User can easily follow the Linux Redhat 6.x installation procedure to finish the installation.

However as for the SYM53C1010 controller,
user must need to rebuild a new OS kernel for support the SYM53C1010 controller

For detailed procedure, check the readme file from ASUS support CD as below or wait for the new released Linux Redhat Kernel
SDMS\DRIVERS\UNIXES\LINUX\README"


REBOOT :

To reboot the system, type the following command : #init 6

Also has an AC Power Loss Restart in BIOS so that system reboot after power interruption.