Hard drive install question
 

How easy is it to add an additional hard drive to a computer? My 20gig is almost full and I want to put another 40 or 60 gig drive in addition. Is it difficult? I'm pretty good with computers, so I won't be new to opening it up and digging through the guts.

It's very easy really. If you buy a new drive it will come with the cable you need (in case your case doesn't already have two EIDE cables in it). Your motherboard can support four drives. Usually purchased systems have only one hard drive and one CD/DVD ROM drive. So, you'll only have used up either one channel on your motherboard controller if they have them both hooked to the same cable, or one device on each channel if they have them on separate cables. Either way, you should have at least one left (say if you have one existing HD, a DVD rom, and a CD-RW drive or something similar). You just mount the new hard drive in the case in an available 3.5" slot and connect it to one of the two cables. Plug in an available power connector and then just set the jumper on the back of the hard drive to "CS" (for cable select). You want all your drives (HD/CD/ETC) set to "CS". Make sure the HD's are connected to the END of each cable and the CD drive(s) is at the middle connector. This makes the HD's set to MASTER and the CD/Other drives set to SLAVE automatically.

You'll probably want to have your current hard drive the "master" drive on channel 0 (it already is now). And, you'll want to put the new one as the master on channel 1. Then have your DVD/CD-ROM as the slave on channel 0. If you have another device too, have that as the slave on channel 1.

Did I make any sense to you? I don't know what your computer hardware knowledge level is and sometimes I'm not the greatest at talking at the newbie level in this area.

Thanks, Dan, I know exactly what you're saying... sounds pretty straightforward to me! But you know how things always work!! I'll be expecting the worst! :eek: lol

I want to insert 2 cautionary notes:

1) make sure you have physical space inside your case for mounting the drive.

2) check your HD cable to see if you have a "cable-select" cable, or a regular cable. Usually, cable-select cables have each connector labled for where it's to be plugged in, and will also have a very high density of wires (if it's ribbon).

I've installed hundreds (literally) over the years. It's a piece of cake.

One last thing to look for is power. Make sure you have a free power connector as well. If not, you can get a Y splitter for about 2-3 bucks when you get the drive.

Yeah, that would be a good additional note I didn't think of on the cable... I was assuming he has a "newish" system, but you know what happens when you assume sometimes. :rolleyes: Although, even if he wasn't to have an open 3.5" hard drive bay... oh, it wouldn't be the first time I've had a full case and STILL sat an additional drive in a box any ways. Even though it's not the best solution I've both rested them on a foam pad on the floor of the case (ahhh you're not going to want to ever move the system around though :p) and I've purchased thin, metal strip brackets from the hardware store and "built" a mount extension off the bottom of the existing drive cage (that was already used up) to "make" room for one more drive.

Where there's a will there's a way man! :D

Good points...
It's a gateway, about 2 years old pentium III 750mhz... I have one more open slot which is good, the other slots are taken with dvd player, cd-rw, floppy, and zip drive. I'll get one either this week or next week, I'm looking to get either a 40 or 60 gb, they're just so cheap anymore! :)

get a bigger one....c'mon, ya wuss...250GB for $406!...cant beat that!... :D:D...just razzin' ya...its crazy how theyve got 250GB harddrives in production now though...

Joe - The floppy drive has it's own controller, which is separate from the hard drive controller. The HD controller has two channels and supports up to four drives. The Flopper controller only can attach to floppy drives (and some other types of devices designed to use it like some tape backup drives). The ZIP drive should be an IDE device, so it's most likely using one of your four possible devices on your HD controller though. You might be in trouble because you listed:

DVD-ROM
CD-RW
ZIP
and your existing Hard Drive

That's four right there, so you might not be able to use your motherboard controller. Well, unless you want to nix the ZIP drive or something. If that's the case, and you want to keep everything, you may have to purchase a secondary ATA (EIDE) hard drive controller PCI card. If you do, they aren't that expensive, so get an ATA-133 capable card. Then, when you buy your new drive, make sure to get an ATA-133 7200 RPM (or better, they now make 10,000 RPM EIDE drives I think!) and hook it to the controller PCI card. That would also allow you to add up to ANOTHER 3 drives besides the new one you want to get now. This is what I had to do when I added a second 100 GB hard drive to my Compaq because it had all the drives you just listed already too.

Joe, you don't want to run your CD-RW and DVD on the same cable (channel) this will significantly reduce the bandwidth of each device and cause an error when trying to burn one CD to the other. By the same token you want to AVOID running the CD-RW on the same channel as the hard drive.

The correct format for a your computer system would be:

Channel 1 Primary----- Hard drive
Channel 1 Secondary- CD/DVD drive

Channel 2 Primary----- CD-RW
Channel 3 Secondary- Zip drive (if it is IDE drive vs. USB, etc)

You can buy a new large drive to REPLACE your current hard drive and install a fresh copy of Windows (not as bad as you think), you can buy a USB external hard drive, or you can buy a PCI card with additional IDE channels that You can plug stuff into. If you were to go with the PCI card, it would be in your best interest performance-wise to run it as follows:

Channel 1 Primary----- Hard drive (C:\)
Channel 1 Secondary- Zip drive (if it is IDE drive vs. USB, etc)

Channel 2 Primary----- Hard drive #2
Channel 3 Secondary- CD/DVD

PCI IDE Channel #1--- CD-RW

Hope I've made sense to you.

Oh and another thing....

Running so many components may yeild your power supply insufficient. It's almost a gaurantee that a 250 watt PS will not handle that many components. Power supplys are a universal fit, so it's an easy install, just $$ if you buy from a retailer. a 350w ps at bestbuy is $65, but a 400w from an online distributor can cost as little as $6. I build and overclock computers. I have used some invaluable resources such as www.pricewatch.com to purchase quality parts at insanely good prices. I have had a site up for my friends and family, but I'll list it here... www.fromentlogic.com

If you click on the scrolling text at the top of the page, it displays a page that explains how you can build a $2000 system for $615. But i explain something about purchasing online products and watching the shipping charges...

take a look

hope I've helped

pricewatch is the only place to get computer parts online IMO...

I am a regular shopping on UBid, Pircewatch, and eBay. If you really shop around you can get killer prices on stuff. But, yeah, you have to watch for vendors trying to make up some lost margin on shipping charges - forsure.

Hmmmm very very interesting.... I'll have to check it out. I will, however, probably get rid of the zip drive since I NEVER use it ever since I got the cd-rw. We'll see how it goes... maybe I'll buy the drive from one of the sites listed, sounds like a good thing... I'll have to go check out the sites after I type this.

Thanks again, guys, good info!

And while I'm at it, I may want to think about a new power supply too, huh? ;)

New Power Supply? you may want a new case! ;)

You really have the stuff packed in there don't you. Anyway, consider getting an 80gb drive. Price per gig, you usually can't beat it (by much anyway). Best Buy and Circuit City have them on sale all the time.

And yes, I agree with you getting rid of the zip. Spend a day copying all of your zip disk files to CD-R's (if you have any), and unhook the zip drive. However, leave it in the case... just in case (that sounds funny) you need to read a zip. this way, it's just a cable move to access it.

...and with all that extra stuff running, your computer will really be lagging...possibly a faster processor, then youll need a new mboard, and some rambus memory of course....:rolleyes:...lol...

FYI: of all places, OFFICE MAX has internal DVD-RW drives on sale right now for $229 with a $50 rebate. $170 for a DVD-RW... Not bad!

LOL are you guys working for my credit card company???? ;) :D

NOT BAD?? Ha thats a steal !!!!! Just b4 I left the states I baught a 'external'( takes the price up by $100.00) DVD-RW for around $419.00 but I just had ta have it :rolleyes: . Thatgs way too much ta pay just ta be external. But if you must, then just buy the internal unit and get a case for it . Geezz Dan where were you a month ago with your fancy sales lol leting me get robbed like that ,I thought this was a family here lol:cool: j/k
Better jump on that deal and quick!! Although finding the dvd blanks cheap is a job in itself!! -littlt help over here please lol