2 hard drives

[nu4ever]

I want to setup a 2nd hard drive on my computer. How do I do that? I want to use it to store music.videos,and games.

[kram 2.0]

Welcome to PC Mech forums

Are you going to be using the regular IDE connectors? In other words, are they going to be simple ATA HDDs? Then buy two hard drives roughly similar, and connect them to seperate IDEs - one as probably a master, and the other a slave.

If Serial ATA, then just use a RAID array - use RAID 0. RAID is a special feature that depends on what HDD you have and what Motherboard you have. If you aren't sure, just ask for help or post your specs


Hope that helps,
kram

[nu4ever]

I will be using IDE cables. It also has Dual cd-roms and a floppy drive will this make a diffrence?

[flanzig1]

Depending on how you have your optical set up at this time; you can set it up with the two HDD on primary IDE and the two optics on the secondary IDE or put the HDD as master on each IDE and optics as slaves.

[Panama Red]

My recommendation is this. Use an 80 wire ide cable on the primary ide and a 40 wire on the secondary. Keep both hard drives on the primary channel. Set the jumpers on both hard drives to Cable Select (cs). Leave the opticals on the secondary ide and don't change their current configuration.

[QuickSilver]

For high speed burning, it is sometimes a good thing to have the opticals on seperate channels.

[nu4ever]

So you are saying that I can put one cd-rom and HD as master and the others as slaves it will work? Also do I need to format the new HD and have it empty or do I need to install a OS for it to run?

[Panama Red]

Originally posted by QuickSilver For high speed burning, it is sometimes a good thing to have the opticals on seperate channels.

Isn't that only if you are burning from disk to disk? And won't you sacrifice some file retrieval speed if the hdd's are on separate channels?

You do need to format the new drive, but you can do that with XP's Disk Management Utility after you physically install it. You do not put an operating system on the new drive. Just format it to NTFS and you are good to go. You may want to set up partitions for each type of file you plan to store, music, pictures, games, etc.

[nu4ever]

I apperciate your help. One more question how can you see the files that are on the hard drive? Do they show up through windows. Also where is the XP's Disk Management Utility? How can you format and not install windows?

[Panama Red]

Originally posted by nu4ever I apperciate your help. One more question how can you see the files that are on the hard drive? Do they show up through windows. Also where is the XP's Disk Management Utility? How can you format and not install windows?

You 'see' the files on the new hard drive by going to My Computer and clicking on the new hard drive or parititions, however you set it up. If you already have windows installed on the first hard drive (you did say you are ADDING a 2nd) then no need to install it again. Disk Management is in the Control Panel of Windows XP within Adminstrative Tools.

[nu4ever]

I think I have it down now thanks for all your help

[nu4ever]

How can you format it under disk management?

[Panama Red]

Once the new drive is installed it will be 'seen' in Disk Management. Just right click the drive and you'll see the format option. Choose NTFS and Quick format and you should be good to go.

[nu4ever]

ok got it all down thanks

[Panama Red]

Good luck. If you run into any problems, just post back in this thread and someone (maybe even me!) will assist.