Installing second hard drive

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Installing second hard drive

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All Forums >> Community >> Computer Software and Hardware issues >> Installing second hard drive

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RickP Posts: 659 Joined: 11/13/2004 From: Kent, U.K. Status: offline	Installing second hard drive - 9/1/2005 15:29:39 Hi a quick few questions on the subject of installing a second hard drive... Is this right: set main drive as 'master' set second drive as 'slave' Queries: should the second drive just automatically appear as an extra drive in 'My Computer' or does one need to reconfigure the BIOS in any way? do both drives need windows installed on them? (using win xp here) Thanks! _____________________________ Regards, Rick On-The-Web-Now!


bobby Posts: 11394 Joined: 8/15/1969 From: Seattle WA USA Status: offline	RE: Installing second hard drive - 9/1/2005 15:42:04 Rick The first HDD should already be set to Master. The other needs to be set to Slave or Cable Select (either should work fine) The second HDD should NOT have Windows installed on it... instead Windows should automatically create an NTFS file system on it as one large partition (you may need to FDISK it or use Partition Logic or Partition Magic to create the file system) Other than that, as long as your power supply is beefy enough to spin up the additional drive you should have no problems. In theory, Windows XP should recognize the new drive and automatically assign a letter to it (map it) _____________________________ If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress? (in reply to RickP)


RickP Posts: 659 Joined: 11/13/2004 From: Kent, U.K. Status: offline	RE: Installing second hard drive - 9/1/2005 15:50:33 Thanks for the speedy reply Bobby What happens if the second drive already has windows installed on it? Will the master still recognise the new drive and automatically format it? If not can the format be done from windows (on main drive - assuming it has recognised the new second drive) or is it necessary to enter DOS on the second drive and format/fdisk from there? _____________________________ Regards, Rick On-The-Web-Now! (in reply to bobby)


bobby Posts: 11394 Joined: 8/15/1969 From: Seattle WA USA Status: offline	RE: Installing second hard drive - 9/1/2005 17:53:51 in my experience your machine will get confused and won't boot at all. Unless there is data that you need, I would wipe the disk clean. _____________________________ If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress? (in reply to RickP)


Brandon Posts: 431 Joined: 7/13/2004 From: Indiana, US Status: offline	RE: Installing second hard drive - 9/1/2005 23:37:07 I'm thinking it will boot off to what ever you have selected first......cd, harddrive one harddrive 2....after you boot onto your system I would go into computer management and see if it see harddrive 2 and then reformat it or what ever you want to do with it. _____________________________ ~ Brandon (in reply to bobby)


RickP Posts: 659 Joined: 11/13/2004 From: Kent, U.K. Status: offline	RE: Installing second hard drive - 9/2/2005 6:31:13 Thanks All! _____________________________ Regards, Rick On-The-Web-Now! (in reply to Brandon)


matt459 Posts: 2 Joined: 9/8/2006 Status: offline	RE: Installing second hard drive - 9/8/2006 9:40:44 sorry to jump in on this question... if i was to install a seccond HDD as a slave with data on it that i wanted to keep e.g. music and some documents, would windows xp pro just see this drive as a seccond drive and would it pop up in my computer and would i be able to access the files? thank you for you help (in reply to bobby)


matt459 Posts: 2 Joined: 9/8/2006 Status: offline	RE: Installing second hard drive - 9/8/2006 9:43:40 can i aslo just ask.... is a "Maxtor DiamondMax 10 with UltraATA/133 interface" the same as a IDE drive? The ultra ATA/133 is a bit confusing. will it work as a seccond HDD in my system and can just be plugged straight in and seen by windows? (in reply to RickP)

rdouglass

Posts: 9167
From: Biddeford, ME USA
Status: offline

RE: Installing second hard drive - 9/8/2006 10:47:12

quote:

would windows xp pro just see this drive as a seccond drive

If it were already partitioned and formatted and properly configured hardware-wise, it should. You may have to go into Disk Management to find/mount/prepare the partition but it should see it.

quote:

The ultra ATA/133 is a bit confusing

ATA is an IDE interface. It's the SATA drives you'll want to stay away from unless you have SATA (Serial ATA) support.

If the jumpers and such are properly set, you should have no issues with this second drive.

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(in reply to matt459)


Taz Posts: 2792 Joined: 7/6/2004 From: U.K (Formerly outer space.) Status: offline	RE: Installing second hard drive - 9/8/2006 12:49:37 IIRC even if a second HDD being added has a copy of Windows installed on it, if you pop into BIOS during the boot sequence and go to the Drive priority section you can set which drive it will boot from/primary boot drive. This of course depends on your MOBO and BIOS, but most have this system contained in them. I've used HDD's in my system that already contain a full Windows install as a secodary drive when I have needed to transfer large amounts of files and data. _____________________________ Smiley T-Shirts and other Geeky fun stuff, Smileys and phpbb Smiley paks. (in reply to rdouglass)