question about hard drives

[steveo21]

If i get a new hard drive for my dell demintion 1100 will i need to get windows disks and stuff? or can i use both of the hard drives at the same time?

 

[Cold Storm]

as long as you have Ide cables that have that slave HDD port then you'll be fine. Or the fact you have sata for it. Which I believe you don't.. Just make sure when you get the hdd to set the Jumpers in the back for your primary to be the "Master" and the other one to be the "Slave" and you should be fine

 

[steveo21]

ok thats all i needed to know tyvm for the help

 

[Cold Storm]

If it doesn't work, make sure you have a 80 wire cable instead of a 40 wire cable. This is a thing that happens to drives that are over 80gbs. You'll need a 80 wire cable to have it read both.

 

[Wetbehindtheears]

you should be able to connect a second drive (check first cos dell like to cost cut and it might be a single IDE cable rather than dual!) the motherboard should automatically see another has been added and (hopefully) windows will see it as well

oops looks like i was a bit sloooow replying!!!

 

[Cold Storm]

Nah man, its all good. I forgot to add in that Dell does that. So check list:

• Check to see if the IDE cable is duel.
• Check to see if the IDE cable is 40 or 80 wire cable. (go to the website I showed ya.)
• Then if needed, order HDD and IDE cable.

Its better to get a new IDE cable with the order. New parts all ways make better for your system. But thats just me on it all

 

[steveo21]

i have a 40 pin and its duel capeble but to use duel do i need 2 40 pin cables? when i look at my hd i see a 4 prong connecter going into it and the 40 pin but i only see 1 more 4 prong and not another 40 pin? so do i need two 40 pins?

 

[Wetbehindtheears]

the 4 prong lead is your molex power connector (connect that to your new hdd) you now need to check that your ide cable has a spare 40 pin connector. you should have 3 in total - 1 is already connected to your mobo, 2nd connected to the hdd you already have and the 3rd (?) is your spare (second) hdd connector. if your ide cable only has two connectors and they are both connected already then order as per previous post.

 

[Cold Storm]

If your cable is duel, then your fine. You don't need another cable to hook up the new hdd. The only reason I said getting a new IDE cable is that sometimes with old 40 wire cables, it doesn't read any hdd's over 80gb.

 

[steveo21]

ok i see 2 40 pins 1 going from the mobo to the d/ drive and 1 going from the mobo to the already instaled hard drive so i would need to purchase another 40 pin then right lol

 

[Cold Storm]

you will need a new one. make sure its a 80 wire cable, that has 3 connectors. Something like this. It'll work for ya.

 

[Wetbehindtheears]

LOL i've just realised what you were looking at - 2 cables - 1 is your FDD (d/drive) and the other is your HDD cable. I should have explained better!! At least you now know that you need an new dual HDD IDE lead. Good luck

 

[JrRacinFan]

Hold on one second Steveo and Cold Storm:

Did you want to REPLACE the exisiting hard drive or just add one for more storage space?

 

[steveo21]

1st ty wetbehindtheears and second i want to add a hard drive to the existing

 

[Xazax]

Dont forget, if you just want storage there are always USB HDD's(external) I myself have a 120GB for backup i bought for 40 bucks from Bestbuy.