second hard drive

[bonnie]

is there any special system regarding the use of a second hard drive?. can I use this exclusivly for the video process and if so,where do I get the info?,I have set up dual monitors and doubled memory,and now have added 500 gb hard drive,hopefully things should be a little faster,but I'm not sure as to how to optimise the h drive,though have followed steves tips regarding the settings etc.bonnie

[Steve Grisetti]

Is your second hard drive an internally installed or external drive, Bonnie?

If it's internal, make sure you set it up in your BIOS as well as your operating system for best performance.

Beyond that, reformat the drive to NTFS. (They come from the factory FAT32.) And you should be pretty much good to go.

Go to Premiere Elements preferences (under Edit) and set all of the Scratch Disks to Same as Project. Then use that external drive to store your Premiere Elements project files and video captures. (I also recommend that, whenever you start a new project, you create a new folder for it on your hard drive. That way all of these scratch disk and render files will store neatly inside that folder -- which makes them easy to clean up with you're done with your project.)

[bonnie]

thanks again Steve,the drive is external,and was set up ntfs,will follow regards your instructions,I just was not sure that the new drive could be used just for the pre,or how !!

[Barb O]

thanks again Steve,the drive is external,and was set up ntfs,will follow regards your instructions,I just was not sure that the new drive could be used just for the pre,or how !!

Bonnie,
Because you will be using an external drive with Premiere Elements 7, I recommend that you use the Windows Disk Management functions to permanently assign it a drive letter.

[Steve Grisetti]

Very good point, Barb! Otherwise, whenever you plug in the drive it might be assigned a different letter -- and Premiere Elements will lose its links to all your video files and you'll have to re-connect them!

[Bill Hunt]

Though my laptop has 3x internal SATA II's, and my workstation 6x SATA II's, I use 1-2TB externals to edit to/from, as I migrate my Projects from computer to computer. I settled on FW-800's, as the eSATA's were not out then. They would be the best connection. I had major issues with USB 2.0 externals, and will only use them for archiving and not working to/from. FW-400 was OK, but too slow for me.

Now, I set up my Projects with Copies of all Assets within the Project's folder structure. All Scratch Disks are on that drive, as are all Exports files.

Barb__O's suggestion is the same that I share with anyone doing video editing with externals. I started with Z:\ and worked backward. Each external has a removable label with it's drive letter and a list of the Projects contained.

To date, I have had zero issues doing my editing to/from the FW-800 externals.

Good luck,

Hunt

[bonnie]

Not sure I understand any of this,the drive shows up in the properies as "F"whereas the existing is"C",would appreciate a basic explanation of "re assigning," etc,though I've read the replies from barb and mr hunt,I'm still at a loss as to how to proceed.
I am using windows xp,have two monitors,the internal hard drive shows that it has 433 gb of space unused,and the external has 465 unused.
What I want to do is to be able to use the external hard drive exclusivly for editing,since I have e-mail,skype and varous other things on the machine,and feel that isolating the pre,and pse,would eliminate some of the possable interferance from these other programs,or am I barking up the wrong tree ?.
If it is in the realm of possabilaties,could someone walk me through the nuts and bolts,in a way that someone who is almost totally computer illiterate would understand, the only other option I have is to persuade my grand daughter to assist !!!
regards to all who have tried to help so far,bonnie

[VernonRobinson]

Bonnie,
The tips about the permanent drive assignment is in case you ever decide to add another drive to your system. In that case Windows might assign the new drive as "F:" and your current drive would become "G:" perhaps. If that happened, then PrEl would be looking to F: to find your files and they would not be there. Windows would have renamed them to "G:". What is being suggested is a way to protect you from potential grief later on.

Please indicate whether you have Windows XP, Vista, or Win7. Then it would be possible to tell you the exact steps. If you have XP here are the steps:

1. Start/Control Panel/Administrative tools
1A. If you do not have Control Panel setup in Classic view you can find Adminsitrative tools under the Performance and Maintenance button
2.Select Administrative tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management Local
3. You will get a split window showing you all of the drives/cd roms/etc on your system.
4. On the Right hand window Right-Click the F Drive.
5. From the pop up window select Change Drive and Paths
6. From here you can assign the drive any letter that is not being used on your system. Windows will remember that assignment. So if you wanted your external drive to be "W:" for your WorkDrive. You could change it here.

How you get to Administrative tools is a bit different for Vista and Win7, but the rest of the steps remain unchanged.

Remember, this is a preventive step. In all likelihood, as long as you are not adding/changing drives on your machines, this is not likely to be a major problem for you. If this looks to be overwhelming, I would not worry much about it at this point.

Regards,
-Vernon

[stanatou]

...and feel that isolating the pre,and pse,would eliminate some of the possable interferance from these other programs,or am I barking up the wrong tree ?.

Bonnie,
Are you asking if it's possible to load the applications to an external drive or just the video clips and photos? Generally, most of us keep the applications (aka programs) on one drive (C:) and have videos/photos/work files stored on 'other' drives. There are options for reducing interference from other things on your computer and, if that's what you need, I'm sure you'll get several recommendations. Good luck...

Stan

[bonnie]

two queries answered,tthe hard drive assignment now makes sense,I did not understand how one differented between the two drives, and as for trying to use one drive for E-mail ,skype,google earth,etc,and working with PRE and PSE on another solely for that purpose,maybe is not possable,I'm trying to see if It can be done,or at least,maybe speed up the process,though recently adding memory and the hard drive,appears to have done just that !.
Yes I have xp home version,and have added a 500 gb seagate HD,plus 500 of memory,I do not,think,I lack tools now,just knowledge,and this forum is the perfect place to find THAT !!thanks to all,bonnie

[Bob]

... as for trying to use one drive for E-mail ,skype,google earth,etc,and working with PRE and PSE on another solely for that purpose,maybe is not possable..

Hi Bonnie,

It's possible.

Getting a second drive for use with PRE and PSE was definitely a good idea. If you only have one drive, everything happens on that drive and your performance can definitely suffer. That's especially a problem when capturing from your camcorder or rendering or encoding video. Placing the media on a second drive isolates it from the large amount of activity that normally occurs on the system drive (C:) and helps prevent problems due to running out of space or fragmenting that drive.

When you add a second drive, how you use it is entirely up to you. If you don't want other applications to use the other drive, don't place their files there. By default, everything goes to the C: drive which is your original drive where the operating system and applications are installed. You have to tell the applications to use the other drive. This would be done by changing the application preferences as needed and saving the media files on the second drive. You don't need to change where the applications themselves are installed.

For Premiere Elements, you probably don't need to modify the preferences. By default, files are set to be located where you place the project file. If you want to use the second drive, simply allocate a folder there and create the project in that location. Photoshop Elements will probably need you to make some changes to the preferences, especially if you use the automated importing features or watched folders. I don't use Photoshop Elements, so I can't be much more specific. If you need assistance, ask and Barb or one of the other PSE experts will be happy to help.

I'd recommend that you create two folders on the drive, one for PSE and the other for PRE. Then, place your remaining folders and files in the appropriate one. Try to think through how you want to organize your folders and files.

If you are moving existing files and media from the C: drive to the second drive, be aware that the drive letter is retained in the PSE catalog and the PSE project files. You will likely need to reconnect the files after the move. Probably the best bet with files in the Organizer is to use the organizer to move the files.

[Barb O]

FYI - Bob.
Yes Photoshop Elements does store the Windows drive letter in the PSE Catalog. However in version 7 (and starting with version 6) the serial number of the drive is used as the primary mechanism for tracking the location of the files.

However, PRE 7 is different. Premiere Elements 7 does continue to use the drive letter.

Bonnie and Bob and everyone
specifics for moving photos that are known to the PSE 7 catalog
It is almost always better to move the files that are known in the PSE 7 catalog using the Photoshop Elements software (instead of moving them using Windows Explorer). See this link for a description of moving the files to the new hard drive

http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/pho ... our_photos

If you have questions, just ask. I have PSE 7 and PRE 7 running under Vista Home Premium on this laptop so I can probably help you with many situations.

Barb

[bonnie]

excellent,that looks like all I need,will try to set up as suggested,apreciate everyones assistance,no doupt I will need further help later on,but for now,thanks so much,bonnie