installing hard drives

[im_tuff]

i need to know how to install a second hard drive. ive been reading on it and stuff, but i think im alittle confused. its already formatted and i know i have to partition the drive, but how do i do that? is that all i need to do? i dont want to mess things up.

 

[vajradhara]

i need to know how to install a second hard drive. ive been reading on it and stuff, but i think im alittle confused. its already formatted and i know i have to partition the drive, but how do i do that? is that all i need to do? i dont want to mess things up.

it depends on the Operating System that you are running. Presuming that you have Win2K or WinXP it's a bit more simple than some of the other OSs.

depending on the drive mfg, you have a diskette that came with the drive. if you do, the diskette will have instructions for how to setup the drive.

basically, you'll want to install the hardware parts, connect the cables and power and then turn on the machine. you'll need to access your BIOS (usually alt+del) and then have your BIOS "auto detect" the drive. this will allow the machine to see the drive.

once you've done that, save your settings and exit. when the OS is present (after reboot) you can go to the Disk Administrator on your machine. (depending on OS, you can right click My Computer and choose "manage" and under "storage" you'll see the Disk Administrator) this is where you will create your partition and so forth.

keep in mind that you may have to write a signature to the drive before the machine will see it, depending once again, on OS.

hope that helps

 

[paulewog]

you do need to partition it. You can do that with windows though. Should be able to just pop it in and windows ought to recognzie it.

 

[paulewog]

.. at least, I didn't.

 

[Stryper]

one program. partition magic

 

[SirKenin]

May not have to do any of that, though, if the drives are already formatted.

Providing your BIOS supports both harddrives, just put one on the top end of the cable as a master. Put the other one on the middle (silver) connecter as a slave. Plug the power in, make sure the BIOS is on AUTO, and your set to go.

 

[vajradhara]

one program. partition magic

argh... that software has some serious issues with it if you end up using it to resize the clusters once you've formatted the drive. you'll end up corrupting the first part of the root folder, which will prevent it from being moved.

in and of it self, that's not that big of a deal... unless you happen to like defragmenting your hard drives

 

[Stryper]

oic

 

[SAPguy]

Dr. Feelgood has it right. As long as it is already formatted you should be able to just hook it up as a slave and go from there.

 

[datan]

remember to set the jumpers for slave drive

 

[vajradhara]

remember to set the jumpers for slave drive

if it's a new drive they both probably support Cable Select, so you wouldn't need to adjust the jumpers necessarily... but you should certanly check it out.