adding a hard drive

rabbitinlights

I have a P3 450mhz dell pc. it has a 8 gig hard drive. (Dont laugh)
I have 320mb Ram, i have a hard drive that a mate isnt using anymore, i wish to use this to increase my storage capacity, i want to connect this to my pc, i know how to physically connect it but i dont know what to do after?
Ive heard things about master/slave?
i also dont know what is on the hard drive?
Would it be better to buy a brand new hard drive?
am i restricted on the size of HD i can install? eg 120gigs?
any help on this would be a great help!!
thanks
rabbit

CodeMonkey

but i dont know what to do after?

You'll need to format the hard-drive and repartition it if you don't want to keep what's already there. The way to do this depends on the operating system you are using.

If you are using windows 2k, plug it in, reboot, go into Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management. Then select Storage -> Disk management from the tree on the left and it should be east from there.

If you are using windows95/98, you'll need to create a bootdisk, keep it in the drive, reboot, and run "fdisk". It shouldn't be hard to figure out how to use this fdisk but if in doubt, please ask.

Ive heard things about master/slave?

Your main hard-drive is already set as master, any addition drives you plug into the machine has to be set as slave using the jumpers at the back of the hard-drive. There's usually a little sticker or something on the hard-drive to tell you what position the jumper has to be in to set it as master or slave.

i also dont know what is on the hard drive?

Errrm, if you want to keep the stuff then just set the hard-drive as slave and plug it in. Otherwise format and repartition it.

Would it be better to buy a brand new hard drive?

Unless the hard-drive from your friend is really old and slow and has a low capacity etc.

am i restricted on the size of HD i can install? eg 120gigs?

Hmmm, the motherboard chipset on your p3-450mhz will most likely not take hard-drives with such a big capacity. It might be fixable with a new bios update but since it's a dell machine I doubt there'll be one available. So i have no idea what the biggest HD your machine can take.

sceptre

Originally posted by CodeMonkey
Your main hard-drive is already set as master, any addition drives you plug into the machine has to be set as slave using the jumpers at the back of the hard-drive. There's usually a little sticker or something on the hard-drive to tell you what position the jumper has to be in to set it as master or slave.

May have been set as "cable select" instead - many PCs with only one HD come this way. As CodeMonkey has said, examine the little instructions on the hard drive to make sure your old one is set as master and your new one as slave.

Personally I'm a fan of putting hard drives on the same IDE channel and all CD/DVD drives on another (in other words connecting the hard drives to the same cable) but some people differ in opinion on this one.

rabbitinlights

thanks a million guys, original HD was set as CS (cable select) put it as master and then new one as slave! worked perfect, just formatted new and i now have 20gigs extra!!!
very impressed guys
Thanks again!

phobos

Eggy, what's the story mate, long time no see?

Guess who?

;-phobos-)

Winters

Make sure both Hard Drives are running at the same speed!

I hade one Running at ATA33 and put in a new 30GB one runing at ATA66. Hate a LOAD of problems until i realised! So i learnt from my mistakes and know never to have them at differant speeds