Installing 2nd Harddisk

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WiredBrain

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I just bought a new 20 GB hard disk. What things I should know when installing the second hd ? Where can I find a step-by-step tutorial on installing a 2nd hard disk ?
 
Just make the jumper on the second hard disk is set to slave, hook up the IDE cable and the power cable (only goes one way), and you should be right
 
You might need to format it in XP but this is fairly easy, if you attach it like djwhite said then boot up XP should auto detect it, though until it is formatted it will not show up in "My Computer".
So you will need to goto Control Panel then Administrative Tools, and open the Computer Management interface.
Then click on Storage in the Computer management window, then Disk Management (local)
You should be able to see your new disk there as well as the old one.
Right Click on the New Disk and select Format.
I am not 100% sure what you can do after that as I dont want to accidentily format either my system drive or my data drive, but if you get that far and arent sure what to do then post a screen shot (press Print Screen button then open Paint Shop Pro or other graphics editor, then either press Ctrl+V or create a new image, then paste. Then you can crop the image down to the size of the format window)
I apologize if that last bit on screen shots was insulting I am just covering all the sections

I think you can also partition with the disk management tool, but your performance will be better without a partition according to dealer - another user here.
 
yup... do as the other lads have said...

my 2 cents :)

go to the official website of the hard drive maker if you do not get a manual with your hdd... and make sure that you know what pins to stick the jumper on to make the drive either a slave or a master... to format it make sure it is a slave... and then you can do whatever you want...

once you have set everything up you can mess around with the boot sequency in the bios... ie hdd 1 hdd 2 cdrom floppy.. or whatever other sequence you wish to use...

since you have a small hdd.. you may not want to partition it since there does not seem to be a reason to...

also try and check what jmper setting your current hard drive has to make sure it is the master...
 
No you can't use FDISK for formatting. Fdisk is used to create or delete partitions not formatting. If you do as everybody else have said you should be just fine.
 
You use fdisk to make the partitions on the drive, then you would use
format D: <-- for second drive
to format the drive in FAT16 or FAT32 if when you used fdisk you said yes to support for large hard drive sizes then it will format in FAT32.

But really you are better off doing it all from the diskmanagement thing I mentioned earlier

I have posted a screen grab of my disk manager thing
 
i am having a similar problem.

i recently switched everything in the computer and now i have

IDE1: goes to my hd with windows 2000 pro on it
IDE2: goes to my cd writer

where and how should i hook up the second HD so the computer finds it?
 
Your hd will be on the end of IDE1, and the other end goes to the motherboard, there should be another plug in the middle of the cable, but some cables don't have this. You need to plug the second hd into the middle plug, then the computer will find it.
If you cable doesn't have the plug in the middle, your cheapest solution would be to buy a new IDE cable.
 
When i connect

One end to the IDE port on the MB and the other to the HD and the middle one into the other HD all of a sudden I cant get into windows. The computer asks me to put in proper boot media meaning that it doesnt boot from the hd when i put the cable in like that
 
Then you have the jumpers wrong. The disk with Win2k on it should be set as Master and the new disk as Slave. Also make sure that BIOS detects the drives.
 
Make sure that the jumper on the back of the hd is set to slave on the 2nd hd (and master on the 1st). Also go into the BIOS and in the first menu make sure that the boot order starts with 'c'.
 
yep boot order should be something like
floppy
cd
C drive (aka HD-0)

or you can have
floppy
HD-0
CDROM

You need to make sure that (if you are using ATA100 cables) the old hard drive with 2k on it needs to be master and have the black connector plugged into it. The new one needs to be set to slave and plugged into the gray connector and the blu connector needs to go into the motherboard.
Then everything should be ok.

Now you should bootup and enter the BIOS (press Delete or F8 or F2 or whatever button your BIOS uses) and select the HDD Auto Detect, or in the BIOS settings there should be a list of the drives connected goto the Primary Slave one and press enter, there should then be an option to Auto Detect it.

hope this helps
 
i got it to work although something really weird happened

before i had
C: on another HD and the volume was called system
D: was a part of the 30 gb that i use now and was called music
E: was the rest of that 30 gb and was called Games

when I installed it now i got System and games, although system is on a completely other disc! and music is gone!

i am speechless...
 
weird can you see the partitions and disks with the disk manager, if you can then it could just be a case of reassigning a drive letter to the music drive/partition
 

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