Installing a second drive

Goose · 21 Jul 2007 at 14:37

I've just bought a 250gb IDE drive to use as storage to compliment my current 40gb that has windows and whatnot installed.

My question is how best to install my new drive. Do i just bung it in, load up windows and then format it the same way i might format a floppy disk or do i fanny about with fdisk? Do i need to do anything in the bios? Do i need to partition the drive?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

semi-pro waster · 21 Jul 2007 at 14:43

Some of your questions depend entirely on how you want to use the drive.

Do you want to use the 250gb as the primary drive? (I probably would as it is likely to be quicker than the 40gb through technology advances). If so then you can just plug it in and load Windows, I'd remove the 40gb while you are doing the install though just for simplicities sake.

If you want to use it as storage then you simply need to format the drive - you can do this in Drive Manager (Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Drive Management).

All you should need to do in bios is check that the drive is recognised and if you are going to boot off the drive then set the correct boot order. Also remember the jumper settings for IDE drives although this will vary depending on which IDE chain you attach it to.

You don't have to Fdisk or partition if you don't want to.

Goose · 21 Jul 2007 at 14:50

Thanks for that.

I thought about using the new drive for windows but i simply cant be bothered with the hassle. I wont partition it either then as i have no need to really.

How many IDE devices can you attach to a motherboard (mine is an Asus A7v Nforce)? My current HD and my DVD writer are connected on separate IDE channels and i was going to install my new HD seperately aswell but i suppose i cant if two is my maximum. If thats the case then should i fix my new HD to the same IDE channel/cable as my current HD or my DVD writer?

I certainly hope that made some sense

Cheers

fobose · 21 Jul 2007 at 14:58

My motherboard has 4 IDE channels, but thats because it has RAID. I used to have 2 IDE drives on one channel and 2 DVDRW on the other - I dont know why I didnt use the RAID controller at the time, perhaps 4 IDE cables was to much clutter

taz488 · 21 Jul 2007 at 16:40

so if you wanna use one as storage do you just plug it in and format? is there a jumper setting you have to alter on the actual drive?

fobose · 21 Jul 2007 at 16:59

Yeah you will need to set the jumper. Set your current hard drive to Master (if its not already) then set your secondary one as Slave. Then when you get to windows format it and if you want partitions use disk management in administrative tools in control panel.

Goose · 21 Jul 2007 at 17:26

So which cable should i attach the new HD to? The one coming out of my current HD or the one out of my DVD writer?

Cheers.

mattyrigby00 · 21 Jul 2007 at 17:34

the current hd one, avoid having optical drives and hard drives on the same cable as that whole ide cable is slowed down to ata/33 because of the optical drive.

youll need the current drive on master and the new one on slave, or both on cable select.

fobose · 21 Jul 2007 at 17:55

mattyrigby00 said:
the current hd one, avoid having optical drives and hard drives on the same cable as that whole ide cable is slowed down to ata/33 because of the optical drive.

I am pretty sure this is untrue, this was only the case on the old 40pin cable I believe, not the 80pin one.

taz488 · 21 Jul 2007 at 17:56

srry if this is slight hijack but might as well kill 2 birds with one stone.

so ive only got one ide slot cos ive got a new board, but i have a ide optical drive and an old ide hard drive, so my only option is the one ide cable joining the two.

so how fast/slow is ata/33 ? i was only going to use the second drive as a storage drive for films and music, so will it be a lot slower transfering stuff to the other drive?

fobose · 21 Jul 2007 at 18:03

Well if I am correct about the 80pin cable, aslong as your using an 80pin ribbon cable it shouldn't affect the performance.

mattyrigby00 · 21 Jul 2007 at 18:06

ata/33 is limited to 33mb/s, which is abit slower than the average hard drive.

semi-pro waster · 21 Jul 2007 at 23:48

mattyrigby00 said:
ata/33 is limited to 33mb/s, which is abit slower than the average hard drive.

This is true but it doesn't actually matter here since the cables are 80 pin now and have been for a long time, having a hard drive and an optical drive (which is as you say limited to 33mb/s) doesn't actually impact on the transfer speed of either because they both work at their own rated speeds. Aside from the rather obvious inability for both to transfer at the same time.