Quick Harddrive question

[sasquatch094]

How do i plug in another harddrive aside from my original one?? i know theres the power supply cord and the ribbon cable (but which ribbon cable do i use)?? then once i have that plugged in how do i get into that hard drive??? Thanks..

 

[PC eye]

Since you are mentioning a ribbon cable that would be an ide drive with a cable seeing three connectors with one going to the main board. Depending on the board most will see the drive's jumper moved to the MA or MS position being master when using the connector at the end of the cable.

For adding in a second drive onto the second middle connector the jumper is set either as SL or SA for slave or left at CS for cable select. The jumper is a small plastic cap that reaches between two rows of small pins recessed into the casing at the rear of the drive itself. Generally there will either a label or stamped set of letters showing where to plug in the jumper cap for each position.

If the drive being added in already has a valid NTFS type partition and is formatted XP or Vista will automatically detect and install it as a new device. It will then appear as another drive letter shifting the D optical to E by default. Drive letters for second hard drives and optical drives can be reassigned afterwards to correct that if needed.

 

[jdbennet]

if the drive isnt partitioned or formatted, right click on my computer and chose manage then go into disk management

 

[PC eye]

For the Disk Management tool where you can create partitions and see those formatted by a right click on them after you enter the "Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage" and click the plus sign on the left side of the Storage heading to bring up a new showing all hard drives and optical drives as well.

The image shows the two internal hard drives as well as the two optical drives in use to give you an idea of just how that will look. Note the divisions are actually more then one partition seen on one of the hard drives.



For creating a partition if a new drive you right click on the empty space. You can also set the size if you intend to split the drive up. Then you right click again and choose the format option to see that become a logical drive with Windows assigning a drive letter to it.

How to change a drive letter? Right clicking on any listed besides the one Windows is installed will allow you to choose any drive letter not presently designated to another drive. For reassigning those you first change their letters to any unused and then assign that letter to a preferred drive.

Gee? I want my dvd burner as D and cd drive as E with a second drive as F. But my dvd drive is F at the moment with the second hard drive as D. Change the dvd to G or H, I, J, etc. then the second HD now sees F as a free drive letter. When right clicking the change drive letter option will see a small list you scroll through come up.