Add a Second Hard Drive
Adding a second hard drive to a computer system is an easy way to get around storage problems, and also a good way to protect valuable data. With the cost of hard drives dropping well below $1 per gigabyte, it makes good financial sense to increase storage capacity by adding a second drive. But what kind of drive? And are they easy to install? Read on for buying tips and installation help...
| The Top Five! |
| Check out this week's most popular articles. |
Preparing for a New Hard Drive
First, determine whether the computer system has room for an additional hard drive. Following the instructions in your computer's operations manual, open the computer case and find the hard drive. (It will probably be about an inch high, three and a half inches wide, and about five or six inches long, with two connectors plugged into it.) If there is room above or below that hard drive for another device the same size, you probably have room for a second hard drive.
IDE or SATA?
Next, look at the cables attached to the existing drive. One will be a power connector and the other will be a data connector. The power connector routes to the computer's power supply and the data connector routes to the motherboard. If the data connector is wide (about two inches), this is an IDE drive, and you will need to get a second IDE drive. Also, check to see if there is available space to plug in a second drive on the same ribbon cable. If not, you will need to install a second ribbon cable in the second drive controller slot on the motherboard, assuming it's available. (The cable should come with the drive.)
If the data connector is small (less than an inch wide), you have a newer SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) drive, and will need to purchase another SATA drive. You should have plenty of space available on the motherboard to add another SATA drive, as most motherboards that support SATA have at least four SATA connectors.
Megabytes or Gigabytes?
The storage capacity of the Hard drives of yesteryear were measured in megabytes, and one megabyte (MB) is about one million characters. There was a time when hard drives cost about $10 per MB, and they were about the size of a small toaster.
Today, hard drives are much smaller and much cheaper. You can buy one gigabyte (1GB = 1000MB) of storage for under a buck, and they're just a little bigger than a calculator.
So live large! I recommend you go for at least 80GB, or larger if it fits your budget. But check your computer's manual to see if it can handle a monster drive before you buy.
Installing Your Hard Drive
If you are installing an IDE drive, on the same cable as the original drive, set the new drive's jumper (the small plastic connector on the set of pins by the data connection) to the Slave setting. If you're installing an IDE drive on a second ribbon cable, and it's the only device on that cable, use the Master setting. If you have a CDROM drive attached to the secondary IDE connector, make the new hard drive Master and the CDROM Slave, setting the jumpers on each device accordingly. The position of the pins for the Master or Slave setting may vary from one drive to another, so refer to the documention that came with the drive.
Most importantly, before you mount the drive in the computer, look on the printed circuit board on the bottom of the drive to find which pin of the data connection is pin 1. It will be labeled with either a "1" or a solid white triangle. This information may also be stamped into the drive case near the connector. The ribbon cable will have a speckled red edge, and this edge MUST correspond to Pin 1 on the data connector, or the computer will not recognize your new drive.
With a SATA drive, the process is much easier. Simply plug the power connector into the drive, and connect the drive to the motherboard SATA controller using the supplied SATA cable. (Both connectors are both keyed to prevent improper connection.) With SATA drives, there is no need to change jumper settings, though you may need to update your computer's BIOS if it can't see the drive.
External Drives
If messing with motherboards is not your style, you can get an external hard drive that connects easily to your computer with a USB cable. External drives are a bit more expensive, but the easy setup and the fact that it's portable make it a good choice for some. The Iomega 33xxx series and the Maxtor OneTouch get high marks from reviewers and users, but other manufacturers such as Seagate and Western Digital make good products as well. Look for a drive that supports a USB 2.0 connection, or the faster FireWire hookup if your system supports it
Copying Your Data
Chances are, your new drive will be larger and faster than the old drive. If so, you may want to copy the contents of the old drive to the new one, and keep the old drive as additional storage. You may also opt to leave just the operating system files on the old drive and keep all user data on the new one.
For help copying your old drive to the new drive, see my article Copying Old Hard Drive to New PC.
|
|
|
Send this article 
Jump to the 
Follow me on 
Buy Bob a 
Check out other articles in this category:Posted by Bob Rankin on January 17, 2006 10:41 AM
| Need More Help? Try the AskBobRankin Updates Newsletter. It's Free! |
 |
Prev Article: Which PDA Should I Buy? |
|
Next Article: Free Credit Reports Now Available |
 |
|
Link to this article from your site or blog. Just copy and paste from this box: Related Keywords: Hard Drives ide sata hard drive installation external drive |
Most recent comments on "Add a Second Hard Drive"
(See all 94 comments for this article.)|
Posted by:
|
I have an 80 gig hard drive in my current computer. I have a 20 gig from our old Pentium 2 computer that I want to put into our current computer. It has a lot of music, pictures and programs on it that we want to use. The old Hard drive is Windows 98 and our Pentium 4 is Windows XP. Should I be able to put the old one in and access our old information? EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, the operating system on the old drive is not relevant. As long as the drive works, you'll be fine. |
|
Posted by:
|
I just bought a new pc. I followed the Vista transfer files, but apparently that does not transfer the programs. The problem is a number of my programs were downloads from the internet and I don't have the keys anylonger. How do I transfer my software? The old harddrive wasn't damaged, I just needed Vista and a larger harddrive. Could I simply remove the hard drive from my old machine and insert it into my new machine? Ugh! EDITOR'S NOTE: You could transfer the program files that way, but you'd still be lacking the registry keys to make them work. It's too bad Vista lacks the ability to transfer the programs. PCmover from Laplink claims to do this. See http://www.laplink.com/pcmover/ |
|
Posted by:
|
Have installed a second drive (F:) and it works fine. How can I change the "my pictures" to point to the new location where I now have all my pictures, instead of the C: drive? EDITOR'S NOTE: Open "My Computer" then double click the icon for your new (F:) drive. Next, open your "My Documents" folder in a separate window. Click ONCE on the "My Pictures" folder (to highlight it) then click Edit/Cut. Click inside the the other window where the (F:) drive is displayed then press Edit/Paste. To verify it worked, click "My Pictures" on the Start menu and it should open the folder on your (F:) drive. |
|
Posted by:
|
I have a Western Dig HD that was in my old XP Machine. I just purchased a new machine with x64 OS. I installed my XP SATA HD in the x64 machine and although the bios sees the 2nd drive I cannot access it in Explorer. I see it in Device Mgr and it says the drive is working and there. But there's no drive letter and I cannot find it in Windows. I am assuming that I have to format the XP drive with x64 FAT system? I'm not sure what to do. Can you help me? EDITOR'S NOTE: You may not have the SATA drivers on the x64 machine. Check with WD to see if they support that drive on a 64-bit OS. |
|
Posted by:
|
OK I got the drives to both work with disk mgmt in control panel. Here's the issue though. I have a 320GB SATA and a 250GB SATA. My bios sees them the correct size but windows only sees the 320GB as a 127GB and the 250GB as a 170GB. I look in disk mgmt and they are listed the same: 127 and 170 Computer |
|
Posted by:
|
hi, i just got a second wd 500 gig sata hard drive and i pluged in all the correct cables and the hard drive shows up in my device manager and when i go into the computer settings before the computer boots up but it will not show up in my computer and i have the drivers i am pretty sure. can u help me? |
|
Posted by:
|
I'm running vista 32 and have just instaled a second 500gb SATA HDD. This is recognised in both bios and device manager but not in my computer! What can i do to make the drive accesable as a secondary HDD? EDITOR'S NOTE: Is the drive formatted? |
|
Posted by:
|
I have a 40GB hard drive in my computer right now. I have a 80GB hard drive from another computer that I want to put in. I ask because I want to have as much memory as possible and because the 80GB drive has files and programs that I dont want on my other computer. EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, there's no reason not to wipe the 80GB disk clean. You can do that by formatting it before or after you install it in the other computer. |
|
Posted by:
|
hello. i have connected the sata hard drive to ide mother board through sata adapter but it is not working. |
|
Posted by:
|
Hi, I have questions about how to install a harddrive from my old computer to my current computer. also, can we extend our power cable, because its kinda short to conect one drive to another? EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, you can extend a power connector. You'll need to buy a cable like this: http://www.directron.com/cbl-y.html |
There's more reader feedback... See all 94 comments for this article.
Post your Comments, Questions or Suggestions
|
Ask Bob Rankin Home Page
Subscribe to AskBobRankin Updates: Free Newsletter |
|
| Copyright © 2005 - Bob Rankin - All Rights Reserved | ||
Article information: AskBobRankin -- Add a Second Hard Drive (Posted: January 17, 2006 10:41 AM)
Printed from: http://askbobrankin.com/add_a_second_hard_drive.html
Copyright © 2005 - Bob Rankin - All Rights Reserved