Adding a harddrive

daguuy · Post by **daguuy** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 5:40 pm

I upgraded from a 15gb HD to a 30gb one (still not the best, but it was free) but I'd like to use my old one for extra storage space. What do I need to do to make it work? Kinda nooby I know, but this is the first time i've used 2 HDs other than linux/windows dual boot.

Post by **bicostp** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 5:53 pm

If the new drive is set to "Master", set the secondary one as "Slave". Else put them both to "Cable Select". Connect the new drive to the IDE connector on the end of the cable. Connect the IDE connector in the middle of the cable to the secondary drive. Connect the cable that's further away from the primary drive's connector to the motherboard.

If you don't have two optical drives, out the secondary hard drive on the same channel as the optical drive. Transfer between two IDE devices on different channels is faster than transferring the same file between the same drives if they were sharing a channel.

daguuy · Post by **daguuy** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:55 pm

Is there any software stuff I have to do? It still has the old windows installation on it.

Post by **bicostp** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 7:15 pm

Nope. As long as the new drive is set up as the master (either by jumper or by connector), the PC will boot from it. Since the old drive has Windows on it, it's obviously FAT32 or NTFS, so XP won't have any problems with it.

atari2600a · Post by **atari2600a** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 7:42 pm

Have you guys completely forgotten about the BIOS?

Post by **bicostp** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 7:57 pm

The BIOS should auto-detect when you install another hard drive. I have an old AT pentium box that automatically detects the presence of a second hard drive, and it's probably from 1993.

The jumper settings and drive positioning need more attention, since that's how the BIOS decides what drive gets what ID.