Going To Add Second Hd

[Nightwolf]

The only potential problem I see is if the drive from your old computer is not FAT32 (depending on what OS you had on that one). If that's the case you might need to run Win98's FAT32 conversion utility. I would also recommend you go into you BIOS settings on your old comp and write down all the info about this drive before you remove it, in case your other system's BIOS doesn't auto-detect it right. Other than that it should be a piece of cake, as long as you change jumpers to make it the Slave on your primary IDE port.

[Sneepboy]

Originally posted by Nightwolf^.`.^@17 February 2003 - 17:52
I would also recommend you go into you BIOS settings on your old comp and write down all the info about this drive before you remove it, in case your other system's BIOS doesn't auto-detect it right.

A nice Fdisk & reformat on the old drive will take care of anything if you dont know what it was before but Im sure you do.

@Nightwolf^.`.^

Even better - if you have one: I have used a camcorder in the past to record each screen of the bios. B)

[ripley02]

ok i need a little help.
i'm at home now and was ready to install the nd HD but there are only IDE ports on my pc one of which is occupied by the original hd and the other by my cd burner. am i SOL or is there another way around this?

[Nightwolf]

Originally posted by ripley02@17 February 2003 - 20:03
ok i need a little help.
there are only  IDE ports on my pc one of which is occupied by the original hd and the other by my cd burner. am i SOL or is there another way around this?

Each IDE cable should have two plugs on it. You should have the plug at the far end plugged into your first HD, and the one near the middle of the cable plugged into your second HD. Like I said before, make sure you set the jumpers to Slave.

[ripley02]

hey thanks Nightwolf! i feel like a moron!! i was almost beting myself up over this.

[PcH]

ripley02, use Nero Burning ROM to burn Win98SE to a CD-R. Backup your entire hard drive with Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003.

[ShareDaddy]

Originally posted by TRshady@17 February 2003 - 16:27
You should be fine just adding a new hdd as slave, i did no problems. Its true, FAT32 systems do have it easy when it comes to formatting etc. Anyone know how to format an nfts file system hard-drive?

I did just that recently, it was not extremely difficult, however it was a little more involved than the paperwork that came with the hard drive suggested. I ended up having to use the XP disc to partition the new hard drive (just made a single full size partition) once that was done the OS assigned a drive letter. I restarted the PC and simply went to windows explorer and clicked on the newly partitioned hard drive and it asked me if I wanted to format it, I said sure and bam, 20 seconds later (120 Gb) I had a fully functioning beautiful NTFS second hard drive as a slave.

[Nightwolf]

Originally posted by ripley02@17 February 2003 - 20:44
hey thanks Nightwolf!

No problem, Ripley. Let me know how it turns out. And like others here have said, it's always a good idea to at least back-up your most important files first. I'm sure everything will be fine, though.

[Supernatural]

Yup, I've done this many time. Installing extra drive are pretty much plug and play. Windows will detect the drive. After it installs necessary drivers, right click the drive in My Computer, Format, and you are done.

[ripley02]

well this is what happened. tell me if i did something wrong. when i opened up the new case i noticed the ide cable on my primary HD has only 2 connectors, 1 for the HD and the other going into the board. so then i opened up the old pc and it had the 2 main IDE connectors but then one in the middle of the cable. so i took both HD's and decided to use the ide cable from the 2nd HD since it had the extra connector. i plugged the main HD into one end of the IDE cable and the 2nd HD into the IDE connector in the middle and then finally the other end going into the board. i made sure all jumpers were set properly since the 2nd was goint to be slave and made sure connections were solid. booted up and get black screen : operating system not found. i cant go any further so i have to turn off and reinstall the main HD. i know i messed up but can someone point out to me where?