Add a Second Hard Drive - Comments Page 4

Hello. I am having a problem with my hard drive. I have used it before and everything worked fine, but when I transfered it to another computer windows wants me to format it, but when I transfered it back to the old computer it opened up fine. Is there a way to bypass the formatting stage without actually formatting the drive?

EDITOR'S NOTE: When does it prompt you to format? Can you cancel the operation and continue?

I am having a similar problem as Stuart. I have winxp professional on a 80gb hd, installed an additional 300 gb hb and all was working fine, then my operating system went sour, I tried to place my second drive on a different workstation with win xp to trasfer data and that workstation device manager sees the drive but explorer does not show it. HELP I have 100's of photos I use for a business.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Make sure the jumpers are set correctly for Master and Slave drives. Also note that a SATA drive does not act as a Master or Slave. If you add an IDE drive to a system with an existing SATA, the IDE must be set as a Master.

I just upgraded my hard drive in my laptop from 15 gb's to 60 gb's and the operating system is still showing the original capacity. Is it not going to recognize this or can i fix it?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Where are you looking to get that capacity number?

I have just bought a second hard drive which is 160Gb to go with my 80Gb. It is a Samsung HD160JJ and is a SATA 11 (2) connection. My problem is, the computer knows it is there. But it doesnt show it as a drive that i can use in my computer. I looked up how to install it but the only thing i found was a dm_creator file that you put on a floppy and boot from it to install the hard drive. But this has failed everytime. Please could you help me here?

I have 2 computers, Dell/Compaq, both with working IDE 20G HD's. I want to take the HD from the Dell system, and use it as additional storage on the Compaq. I have already checked to make sure the Dell HD is compatible with the Compaq MOBO, etc, etc, by removing the Compaq HD and installing the Dell HD.

My question is: Whats the easiest way to add the other drive? I have an IDE cable that has two connectors (Master/Slave) but its not currently the one in use on the Compaq. Can I simply set the 2nd HD jumper to "slave", replace the existing cable with the one with both connecters and go?

EDITOR'S NOTE: That will work fine. You can also use two IDE cables, as long as you set the jumpers correctly.

Can i add a old hard drive from another computer to my computer i have now,if so do i follow the same steps as above, i tried to add one before but the computer didn't reconize it, it was from a older model computer thou, thats probably why.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If it's an IDE drive (they've been around for quite a few years) it should work. Be sure to set the jumpers to indicate it's a slave drive.

I have a SATA drive that I am using as my second drive. My primary is IDE. When I try using the SATA as primary the bios sees it but when I try installing windows XP pro it does not see it. The SATA is 240 Gb but windows will not recognize it to load any installation files. So I have to still use the 100 GB IDE drive to install XP pro. What am I doing wrong???

EDITOR'S NOTE: Did you try removing the IDE when installing to the SATA?

When turning an old internal 78GB hard drive into an external hard drive for a 40GB computer, do I have to re-format the 40GB computer hard drive? I understand that I have to re-format the 78GB drive but do I have to re-format the 40GB drive also?

EDITOR'S NOTE: You shouldn't have to reformat either one!

Great page, great help! My main household PC went haywire this week, and fails to get past the windows screen before restarting itself. No big deal as I have been thinking of upgrading anyways. But I want the files off that (partitioned) HDD. I think the graphics card / mobo is goosed, so I removed the HDD and hooked it into a spare one - bios recognised etc etc as for the others above, However...same as some of the other posters, i cannot get the PC (the spare one) ro recognise the older HDD in Win XP explorer. I have 60gb of files I need to recover from that HD, and transfer to my new laptop, but the old pc crashed and fails to reboot long enough for me to copy the file sto my external HD. Now, is there any way I can hook up the old internal HD (Western Digital 80gb) via USB, to the new laptop without making it a full on part of a system? Is there a cable/connector kit available to do this? I really, really don't want to lose that info!!!

EDITOR'S NOTE: It may be configured as a MASTER drive, you need it as a SLAVE in the other machine. Check the jumpers. You can also convert it to an external drive. See http://askbobrankin.com/convert_internal_hard_drive_to_external.html

I have a Dell Inspiron B130 laptop, and it only came with a 40GB HD. After installing Vista and Office, I don't hardly have any room. Is is possible to put 2 hard drives in a laptop, or do I need to buy an external? Thanks!

EDITOR'S NOTE: Doubtful that there's room for a second drive...