Trying to hook up new hard drive

[smol0028]

I bought a new hard drive (a Seagate 120gb Ultra ATA/100 7200 RPM 8MB) and I want to make sure that I install it correctly. I am a little confused about connect the cable. Right now my computer is set up as:

1-- CD/DVD Drive connected to DVD burner connected to motherboard
2-- Zip Disk to Old hard drive (40gb) to motherboard
3-- Floppy disk drive to motherboard

My first question is how to hook up the new hardrive and keep my old hard drive to transfer my data? Can I take the cable thats running from my floopy and connect it to my zip drive and then to the motherboard so that I can connect my new hard drive to my old hard drive then to the motherboard??

I also am wondering about slave vs. Master drive. Would I set up my new drive as the master and the old as my slave?

And finally in the manual it talks about partitioning my drive...what is that?

[Wolf_10]

It sounds like you can only have 4 IDE connections. Which means your zip drive is out unless you get some type of ide adapter. You can probably get an enclosure for your current zip drive, this will convert it to an external device that uses usb.

Do you have your Operating system CD and product key? If yes, then I would just make the new HDD the master, by using the master jumper setting (on the back of your HDD's) or cable select, whatever works.

Do a fresh operating system installation the new HDD, and download all the service packs etc, it will be like having a new computer. Then slave your old HDD to your new HDD. Now you can see the data on your old HDD, and take whatever you need. It's nice having two physical HDD's in one computer.

Remember you need your original Operating system CD to do this.
Partitioning is just the process of preparing your disk to be used by an operating system. It's a good subject to read up on beforehand. GL

[albertw2]

If you don't have original OS CD, which vendors cannot seem to afford to supply anymore , then it looks as though the quickest route is for the zip to go and slave your new drive to the existing 40 gig. As wolf said get an enclosure and put your zip in that.