Adding extra HDD

[sliceoflife2018uk]

I have a very old decktop PC (c.1998), the motherboard being a PC-Chips PC100 model M726.

It has four IDE (pata) connectors, which are used for 3xHDD and 1xCD-ROM.
It also has a floopy drive connector.

I have been given a new IDE HDD and would like to add it to this system so my question is can it be added to the existing confirguration somehow? I have a ribbon cable with 3 connectors that could be used on one of the MOBO sockets thus enabling 3 HDDs.

If the worst comes to the worst I could always swap out the CD-ROM as it is never used, but would prefer to keep it of possible.

 

[johnb35]

Since cdroms and hdd's use the same connector you can put an hdd on the same cable as a cd rom.

 

[beers]

You'll have to ensure the jumper pins are set correctly. If the existing drives are master then configure the new drive as slave.

 

[Agent Smith]

I had a HDD on the CD cable ribbon once, but that bus is very slow compared to the HDD buss. I only did it for three HDDs.