New Hard Drive

[Powerchordpunk]

I am planning on buying a new hard drive. I already have 4 drives in my machine. (DVD, CDRW, ZIP, and HDD) But I don't have any more IDE channels to hook up to. Are they called IDE channels? If I want to keep what I have and put in the new internal drive, what do I need to do. Does this entail buying a RAID controller card? I don't know what those are, so please explain if i need one. Thanks. If there is now way possible besides a new mobo then i will just remove the zip drive, change the old to slave and be good to go. Oh by the way. I currently have a 20gig ATA/100 drive. Can I have my new drive be an ATA/133 drive? im a noob when it comes to hard drives. THANKS.

 

[Zedric]

Yes you want an IDE controller card. Most of these have RAID as well but that can be turned off if you don't want it. All you need is a free PCI slot.

Since you have the hdd and the zip on the same channel (I'm guessing) the hdd will not run at full speed (the zip is not ATA100 if I'm correct?). One idea would be to hook up the new drive as well as the old one to the controller card and boot from there instead of from Primary Master (hdd0).

 

[Powerchordpunk]

I think the zip drive is ATA/100

 

[@n!e]

no, i think it only run 33(if not mistaken) but definitely not 100....

 

[Bretenn]

i definitely recommend u to separate that hdd from those devices...

 

[Powerchordpunk]

yeah i think the zip is 33 (ATAPI). Wouldn't it be better if I moved the zip to the IDE card and put the two hdds on the mobo?

 

[Zedric]

Yes, but there could be a problem. Some controller cards only supports HDD:s. Not CD-ROMs, not ZIP.

 

[Nick M]

Some Controllers only meant for HDDs; not anything else.

I'll look around though; see if I can find a controller that does. If I find it; I'll post again.

 

[Powerchordpunk]

oh right. Ok - got it, but when I put in the new one, I want it to turn into my C drive (that I boot from) So I will copy contents of old hard drive to new. I will then switch the new to master and format the old.

1. Does the new drive have to go first on the old card?

2. Before I copy old contents to new, do I put new one in and set it to slave temporarily?

3. Can I just switch the drives over to the IDE controller card and it will simply boot?

 

[Zedric]

1. No but it may be a good idea.
2. Yes. Or no. Depends. You could just hook it up to the new card the way you want it and boot as normal. Then copy the disk (use Ghost or something, don't just copy files). Make sure the new drive is bootable (the partition). The set the controller card to boot from the new drive. Hope this works (hope it's even doable).
3. Not sure I understood.

OR, you get a card that can support the ZIP and put the HDD:s on the primary channel on your mobo. Easier I'd say. Then the answer to 2 is yes. After you copied, switch the master/slave jumpers and start up the computer. Hopefully it will work.