Add a Second Hard Drive - Comments Page 7

I bought a 2nd SATA hard drive to put in my computer. When I opened it, I discovered the motherboard only has 2 SATA connectors. Would getting a PCI card be the best and most affordable way to be able to accomodate for the new drive? I plan on using the card for the DVD drive, since I don't plan on using it as much as the HDDs, however I will need to use it to install three OSs on the new drive (Server 2008, Windows 7 and Ubuntu Studio). If this won't work, is there another option?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Why not add a SATA controller card, it'll give you the extra SATA ports you want.

old hard drive with windows xp that was on a computer that was built. Have the windows xp key and cd and want to install in new computer that has windows 7. Want to boot from both. the old hard drive is sata as well as the new hard drive in the new computer

thanks

I cloned my C disk with an external USB memory disk. Can I use it as my OS and use mu C disk for back up and or storage?
And if so, when I turn on my PC, will start from external USB memory disk?

Thanks
Lu

I want to download movies to my pc but save them on another hard drive so that I wont lose memmory. Is that the correct way or do you have another suggestion.

I bought an HP6320F. Comes with a Western Digital powered 1TB SATA drive. the last computer I built I had a WD 250G boot drive (powered) and 2 SATAII Maxtor 200G drives. the two MAXTOR just needed the SATA cables to run on the motherboard and recognized them. This stupid PC won't recognize the two new drives...they aren't powered like WD is...they have a 15pin SATA and a 7 pin SATA connector on the back...what do I do - HP support are all idiots

EDITOR'S NOTE: I think you need one of these to connect power to the 15-pin SATA port:

http://www.exporties.com/site/web_images/01774.jpg

I installed a hard drive from a computer that the power supply died on. The computer reconized the drive and I can see the folders but it won't let me access the files or start any programs on the old drive.. What do I need to do?

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's odd that you can see folders but not access the files. What happens when you try to open a file?

I see in the article you talk about changing the BIOS settings if a new hard drive isn't being recognized. Can you tell me how to do this? I have a new computer and have installed our old hard drive but it will not recognize it. I think I can see it in the disk management section but when I right click to maybe assign a letter etc. almost all the options are greyed out so I can't click on them. Thanks. Both drives are SATA.

I have a new computer and am in the process of adding a second hard drive (from our old computer). From my googling and this website, I have discovered that having Norton GoBack on my secondary hard drive is making it impossible to read and use with the new computer. I have a found a couple solutions but none have worked since they are set up for Windows XP etc, but my new computer has Windows 7 (for example booting to MS-DOS and then running a file from Symantec to remove GoBack but I can't make an MS-DOS startup disk with Windows 7). Please help me, I would REALLY appreciate an answer to this...it's driving us crazy. I don't think there's any other relevant information. Both are Sata drives and the secondary drive is recognized in disk management and BIOS but I cannot assign it a letter because of the GoBack issue. Hope this makes sense and I would very much appreciate your help with this issue. Regardless, I'm thankful for your website for those of us who would like to become my computer savvy but have a long way to go! Cheers.

I just reinstalled windows on my computer. And as always went through the same reutine of instalation. Now after it insatalled it restarted the computer. And went to windows. Then automatic updates started installing. And restarted again but this time there was no BIOS just loaded up windows. Thats when I looked to see if all my devices were working properly. Yes it said both hard drive were listed but no drive letter attached to the secound hard drive. So I went even further to see if I still had approximately 80 gigs between the two. No I did not it was only working the first hard drive on 38 total gigs. So I have a C: but no D: and no Bios to turn it on myself. Why/What can I do to fix this.

One more thing Ive been updateing for the last 3 days and the updates alone are nearly 15 gig whats up with that. Can you please tell me what I can do. Everything was just fine till I decided to reinstall my windows. Everything was working, Drive D: as well as my BIOS.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If everything was working, why would you want to reinstall?? Anyway, your BIOS is not gone. You couldn't even boot up your computer without a BIOS. Shut down completely, power off, then power on. You should see the BIOS info flashing by, and you can press Del, F1, Alt, or Ctrl within a few seconds of seeing the instructions to enter the BIOS setup screens.

Recently, I wanted to made the the second IDE drive become the slave but when the PC started, the settings indicated as the disc as the master eventhough I removed the pin to made it as a slave disc.
I do not know what to do next. Please help me..

Would getting a PCI card be the best and most affordable way to be able to accomodate for the new drive? I plan on using the card for the DVD drive, since I don't plan on using it as much as the HDDs, however I will need to use it to install three OSs on the new drive (Server 2008, Windows 7 and Ubuntu Studio). If this won't work, is there another option?

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you have no available SATA or IDE slots on the motherboard, an IDE card would be a good choice.

Is there a way I can switch hard drives between my Hp laptops just to save my documents to an external hard drive. Then switch it back?

Dear Bob,

So far as I am concerned I have a slight mystery.

First the good thing: installed a USB 1TB WD disk to my HP Pavilion and it runs like a dream.

Secondly I connected a 2TB USB WD disk to my Compaq Presario desktop. Both disks basically used for backup purposes (for the time being). So far so good. However, the deskop will not boot up with the USB disk connected. It comes to screen with Bootup change, run diagnostics etc. and then no activity anymore. The startup in the BIOS is the C/D drive (original situation) and secondly the DVD/CD drive. So far so good I think. Apparently Windows 7 X64 thinks it has to load/boot from the USB disk (I presume). And of course nothing there to boot from.

The laptop has no problem at all.

So far as I can think the boot up process is OK.

USB drive is partitioned in 2 (1TB each)done via standard W7 disk manager. Any suggestions?

EDITOR'S NOTE: I think if it was trying to boot from the USB drive, and found no operating system, you'd get an "Operating System Not Found" message. A bit of searching shows that others have also had this problem. You might try looking in your BIOS for settings that deal with USB booting, or "Boot from other Devices" and disable them.

What do I do if I already have a second drive? (This was not my doing, and I think they're sharing & copying things)
They're filling up, and I din't know how; (for the most part).
(I'd like to wipe/kill C: with Killdisk, move everything there; then wipe the other. Hopefully then, encrypt everything.)
Thanks

I just got a 160gig hard drive and want to add it to my computer that is already has 30 gig Master
I was planning to make the 160 into a secondary/slave hard drive but it will not hook on the tower frame correctly, pins fit just fine.
I think it is because the 160 is from a compaq Presario XP and my computer is HP a305w
I might just a will take it to someone else for installing
what do you think?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Every hard drive I've ever seen for the last 15 years has standard mounting holes and fit into the slide-in mounting cages in the system unit. Take another look...

Hello,I have a HP-Pavilion; model AY601AA-ABA HPE-130f, OS Win 7 home premium x64, Ever since I got this comp (3yrs ago) I have had many problems trying to get my old games to run, tired of the useless answers I get from most help sources, I've decided to put in my old 160gb WD IDE hard drive with WinXP into 1 of the many bays available, so I could play the games again without all the win7 issues,seemed like the best choice, and use it just for the old games again. I've read a lot of the posts here, and seems easy enough, but is there anything u can tell me to ake sure I don't screw this up? my current hard drive is 1TB sata, and i'm concerned about conflicts, any help would be greatfully appreciated bob, ty for reading my post, am disabled and comp gaming is my only hobby, and I really miss my old games...ty Don

Sometime ago, I copied the Game ''World of Tanks", from my Old Laptop[of which was dying] to an
External Hard Drive. When my New Laptop came in[a friend did it], he made it where I could Play W.O.T., off of my External Hard Drive, onto my New Laptop. Microsoft, about 2 weeks ago Screwed up my LAPTOP[LONG STORY],and then Re-Installed Windows 10 of which I had originally. Now, I Cannot Play W.O.T. Off of my New Laptop anymore! How can I do it? I want to play the game off of my New Laptop,[it does not have enough space] like I was doing before. Again, How do I do it?
Thank you,
Paul from Toms River, N.J.