Topic: Second Hard Drive

[Simon]

I have purchased a second hard drive, and a PCI IDE controller.  The new drive's intended use would be for storage.  Is there anything I need to know before I embark on this project?  I do have a horrible feeling, that I won't have a spare power connector from the PSU, but I haven't opened the case to check yet.  I will probably not do this until the weekend, unless it is particularly quick and easy.

[twiggy]

Nar you should have a spare plug in there. Why dont't you jsut stick it on the 2nd channel on the IDE cable or you already got two hard drives other than the one going in?

[Simon]

I've just opened the case, and found, as I suspected, that I don't have a spare power connector.  I have one each to DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, and CD-RW drives, one to the hard drive, and that's it, apart from the one to the floppy drive.  No more spare connectors.  

Apparently, you can get 'doubler' connectors, so I'll have to look for one of those.

[acechan]

Just be careful with the maximum power your PU can handle! If you don't have any connectors left, there's a chance that your PU is not that powerful...

Then, you're saying you have *THREE* CD/DVD drives, right? Then, with the Hard Disk you already got connected, there's a chance that you won't be able to plug an additional disk.

Here's my advice: your CD-RW is useless, disconnect it and use the cables to connect your new Hard Disk.

If you REALLY need a CD-RW *AND* and a DVD-RW, then I'm afraid you'll have to buy an additional IDE controller (except if your motherboard got more than 2, that is).

Another thing... for speed purposes, I would recommend you to connect both hard-disks on the SAME IDE cable/controller. There's a disadvantage of doing this though: you won't be able to make "on the fly" copies between your reader and burner.

If speed is not a concern for you, and you usually copy CDs/DVDs "on the fly", then connect both CD/DVD drives as secondary on each controller.

[Simon]

Hi Acechan,

I have already bought a PCI IDE controller, for which to attach the second hard drive.  Are you saying that, instead of that, attach the two hard drives to the same IDE controller on the motherboard, then connect one of the CD/DVD drives to the PCI IDE controller?  That makes sense I suppose.

You are right, the easiest solution would be to get rid of my CD-RW drive.  The reason I hoped to keep it is that I tend to burn more CDs than DVDs, and the CR-RW is faster than the DVD-RW at burning CDs.  It also fills up the slots in the case nicely.    There is logic in removing it, however, and I may well reconsider that more sensible route.  It's a shame I didn't think of it before I bought the PCI IDE controller.

[acechan]

Well... erm... how to say that... erm...

Well... hehe

I also keep an old CD reader (not even burner!) in my old server, 'cos its colour is exactly the same as the tower...  

[Simon]

Well, I've had a busy afternoon!  

I decided to replace my CD-RW with the new Hard Drive, so as not to overstress the PSU, so I removed the CD-RW, sorted out the jumpers etc for the DVD-RW and that was sorted.

I then installed the PCI IDE Controller, and second hard drive, and then the trouble started.  When I rebooted, the PC wouldn't see the original hard drive, so I couldn't get into Windows.  A RAID configuration screen came up, so I set that as Normal, but still no luck.  I had set the new hard drive as Primary on the PCI IDE card, so I thought maybe that was the problem.  Changed it to secondary, then the RAID config complained that there was no Primary drive.  

Thinking something that rhymes with 'clucking bell', I thought right, back to square one, so disconnected hard drive from PCI thing, and rebooted, with a view to installing the PCI thing separately, then trying to attach the new HDD.  PC still wouldn't boot, as it wouldn't see the original Hard Drive.  B**LOCKS!!!  >

Went into BIOS, and original HD was detected, but not in boot sequence list.  What to do?  Nothing but go right back to the drawing board.  Took out PCI IDE card thing, and rebooted.  NO DRIVES SEEN!!!    Then realised I'd knocked out the IDE plug to one of the Rom drives, plugged back in, fired up and lift off - back in Windows.  What a bloody relief!

Not to be defeated, I then thought I'd try plan B, and installed the new Hard Drive without the PCI IDE card thing, and..... IT WORKS!!  

Only thing is, it's supposed to be a 160Gb drive, but Windows is only seeing 153Gb, so I've lost 8Gb somewhere.  Can't see that it's because of an old BIOS, otherwise it wouldn't even see that much, would it?  Other thing is, I initialised the drive, then formatted it to NTFS.  As the drive was / is empty, I thought a Quick Format would do, but it literally took 2 seconds, so I'm wondering if that was right - can someone confirm, please?  The drive seems to be working, and I've copied some files across to it, but nothing that can't be wiped if I need to do a full format.

[Sandra]

Thats fine Simon, in fact you did well to get 153 gig out of a 160 gig drive.
I have a 160 that shows as 149 gig and a 120 as 111.
The quick or full format doesnt seem to make much difference, apart from the time it takes to format although if it has had an OS on then you would probably be better using the full format option  

[Simon]

Thanks Sandra.