Add a Second Hard Drive - Comments Page 1

Where can I find memory for $1 per gigabite? Am I misunderstanding what you've written? The reason I say that is because a 1 gig thumb drive or flash drive costs in the neighborhood of $70 to $80.

EDITOR'S NOTE: First, a terminology note... "memory" should be used when discussing RAM -- the working memory that goes poof when you turn off the computer. It's appropriate to use the term "storage" or "hard drive space" when discussing the storage of your files.

Now on to your question. Yes, flash drives (sometimes called thumb drives or keychain drives) that connect via USB are much more expensive. I was referring to internal hard drives. You can purchase a 160GB IDE drive for under $100 now.

While Bob notes that Maxtor One-Touch gets good reviews, (my experience is quite the opposite, having had several of them die very shortly after they are out of warranty), I would note that Maxtor generally gives only a one year warranty on their drives, while Seagate currently gives five year warranties on ATA and SATA drives (not just SCSI). Since Seagate has recently bought Maxtor, there may be a change in coming months, but I'd strongly recommend checking the warranty period on whatever you buy, and you can't go wrong with five years. When in doubt, check the manufacturer's website.

If I choose the external option, is it true that 2.5", i.e. laptop drives, although more expensive, are more robust than their larger counterparts? There are very inexpensive external 2.5" drive boxes available which will take a laptop drive. Would this be a good choice for an external drive which will be carried around?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sounds like a good idea if you plan to be carrying your external drive around.

It should also be mentioned that some motherboards (like mine unfotunately) do not support single bootable SATA drives. It will allow a SATA drive as additional storage or two SATA drives in a bootable RAID configuration. Also, installation can be tricky as SATA drives often require drivers not included in XP, so you have put them on a floppy and press F6 during install so it'll load them. The forums are full of frustrated people trying to get their SATA drives to work. Not for the faint of heart!

There is another option for external drives. If you've done upgrades in the past there is a fair chance you have an unused hard drive laying around. Instead of puchasing a complete external hard drive (for several hundred dollars) get an external hard drive enclosure case (about $40). Just install the unused hard drive in the enclosure case and plug it into a USB port.

Consider carefully the wisdom of purchasing your secondary drive from the same manufacturer as your primary drive as you read my cautionary tale. (Cue the Bethoven organ music.)

I discovered Norton Ghost 2003 wouldn't acknowledge the existence of a second drive if it was a DIFFERENT BRAND then the primary drive. I found this out while trying to recover my system. Fortunately the recovery was a dry run.

Is this still the case with v10.0? Beats the beans outta me! But I think I can be forgiven if I say I don't have the money or energy to experiment. (Fade to black.)

When "spec-ing out" a second drive, isn't it important to note the fact that certain operating systems (Windows ME ver.) only recognize drives up to 120G ? Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I am not all that "techy".

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's true that a Win98-based OS (such as Win ME) will only support hard drives up to about 128 GB. But if you're still running Win98/ME then you may be unprotected from a wide array of malware. I'd recommend upgrading your OS before buying a new hard drive.

Have a new (Windows XP)PC with SATA drive and room in cage for a second. Four SATA connectors on motherboard as in your picture. Is one primary and one secondary? Do the connectors have different priorities or is this set in BIOS? Wondering if there might be a simple way of dual-booting Windows and Linux simply by controlling which drive boots first. My comment is that it would be helpful to have some more explanation on this.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm really not sure... I don't have a SATA system right now to test with, but why not pop into the BIOS settings and see if you can simply change the boot order?

When I hook up my external hard drive as a back up item, do I want it to be slave or not? I will unhhok it once the files are backed up.

EDITOR'S NOTE: As far as I know, the master/slave distinction is not relevant for an external USB-connected drive. If you do have a switch, I'd set it to slave.

I need to add more memory to my old operating system. Is it better to upgrade the RAM or add a second hard drive....it seems it would be easier to add a second external hard drive, but would that give me the desired result?

EDITOR'S NOTE: You're mixing apples and oranges... RAM is the working memory used by Windows and other programs. It is cleared when you turn off the computer. A hard drive stores your files permanently. If your computer seems to be low on hard drive space, an external drive would be helpful. If it complains about low memory, you need RAM.

My Friend added another hard drive to his computer. Now he is getting this error message when trying to boot. I think it is because he added a hard drive from an older computer that has Windows 95 on it to a computer that has Windows 2000 on it. He hooked up right. The message is "Cannot find an operating system".

EDITOR'S NOTE: That shouldn't matter. If the system now has TWO drives, it should not affect the ability of either one to boot. Make sure the Win2000 drive is set as Master, via the switches.

Am attempting to upgrade to SATA, but want to keep IDE as backup.....

From Windows Xp Pro (on IDE drive) I installed a WD 160gb SATA drive (formatted, partitioned, etc.). Using Norton Ghost 9.0, I imaged the IDE drive Operating System partition, then restored that image to the first/boot/OS partition on the SATA drive.

The SATA drive, when selected in Bios to boot first, works fine. However, if the IDE is selected to boot first there is a problem...the desktop icons come up rearranged all to the left in columns, and my 3rd monitor (PCI 9250 Primary) is blank (get code 10 when trouble shooting this).

I can do a restore to fix the icons and display/monitor, or I can shut down/disconnect SATA drive/reboot IDE and all is fine. The connected SATA seems to mess with the OS on the booting IDE.....?

Is there a fix for this interference? There are times I will need both the SATA and IDE connected, and with the option to boot from either. Additional info: motherboard is GA-SINXP 1394 and SATA is 300mb version jumpered down to 150mb to be compatible with motherboard.

Ive been trying to add a new SATA Drive but my system does not have a spare sata cable and my mother board has 4 slots for the same n one used so should i get a new Y Sata cable or a new single sata cable which one would be better option.

Secondly how to make new drive as master n old as slave in BIOS

EDITR'S NOTE: It's odd that your SATA Drive did not come with a SATA cable. If you have an open SATA slot, buy a single cable. As for master/slave, this really doesn't exist with SATA. The drive plugged into SATA0 will be the boot drive, unless your BIOS lets you change the ordering.

Hi there. I use Windows XP and have added a second SATA drive (SAMSUNG SP2504C). I have configured the BIOS and the system reboots OK. In ADD HARDWARE on the control panel the disc is recognised and reported as working correctly.

Explorer does not see the drive, so how do I format and partition it? How do I address the drive? Using the next available letter (E:)?

PS My drive also didn't come with a cable

Same problem as stuart had.... Drive shows up on device manager and not in my computer?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Is the drive formatted?

I recently built my own two home computers, however I've been curious about adding more storage space. From what I've read so far, it seems that I can just plug and play with a SATA2 drive, but then the final comment (with the ensuing editor's note) threw me off.

Am I correct in guessing that all I have to do is format my new HDD with my XP cd (it is OEM version, so Im not so sure it will work for just a formatting. Soon to upgrade to Vista Ultimate... just for kicks) and then plug it in?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sounds correct to me.

Hi. Same problem as Stuart and Justin. My second drive (serial ATA) is formatted and has Windows XP Pro loaded. It was my primary drive up until I added a serial ATA Raid volume, also with Windows XP Pro. The Raid volume is now my primary, as desired (using slots 0 and 1 on motherboard). I reconnected the older serial ATA, non-raid drive (using slot 2) and it shows up in device manager, but does not show up with a drive letter in "My Computer".

EDITOR'S NOTE: Is there a way to add it to the RAID array?

Nice article, just saved myself some hastle looking for a new drive! I'm looking to get a seagate 320gb 7200.10 drive & connect via sata to my mobo; i have a seagate 200gb 7200.8 hdd connected via ide at the moment (the drive itself is demarked as being 'ultra ata) - is it possible to connect this up via sata at all or am i reading the wrong thing into ultra ata?

EDITOR'S NOTE: SATA drives have different connectors than IDE, that's how you can tell.

I got a new 300GB (good old IDE, about 39 pins) and put it into XP SP1 as a slave. Formatted it. Put on Lots of data...etc... Transferred it to a Windows 2000 OS and it asked me to format it again???? I wanted to transfer my files but I can't... why?

EDITOR'S NOTE: That doesn't sound right, either OS should recognize the drive's contents. Does it work if you put it back in the XP system?

I am having trouble getting XP pro's explorer to "see" my second hard-drive after a new install of the operating system. Computer management - disk management sees the drive, however I cannot assign it a drive letter, since "change drive letter and paths" is grayed out. XP has not assigned it a drive letter at all. The disk is has a status of healthy and active. This disk is a seagate drive and it has data on it I do not want to loose. Please write me if you have an idea as to how to fix this.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Could you access the second drive before you re-installed the OS? Was it previously your primary drive? If so, boot from it to verify the disk contents.