Upgrading from one to two hard drives

Discussion in 'Storage Devices' started by _Lee_, Mar 19, 2012.

  1. _Lee_

    _Lee_ Geek Trainee

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    Greetings,
    I am a newbie when it comes to hardware, so far I have done only basic stuff like switch a hard drive, ram or cd-rom, so here's a question to anyone who has more experience with actual upgrades.

    I am running a old P4 ibm netvista desktop pc, which has been made for only 1 hdd- has only one place to where to mount a hdd, same with the cables... but I have a another old, not working pc, where I could get a couple cables from, and a couple hdd's. So, would it be ok to mount a another hdd, if I used a cable (from the second pc) with 2 connectors for hdd's and used one of the power supply cords that is meant for cd drives.
    The biggest question here is if it will not short fuse the power supply or anything...

    I have no experience in this, so If the total idea is completely wrong let me know, or maybe share some tips for alternative solutions.
     
  2. RHochstenbach

    RHochstenbach Administrator

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    Yes that is possible. Hard drives and optical drives use the same cables for power and data. You do need to make sure that the case has a place to mount that additional hard drive, otherwise you'll have to be creative :)
     
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  3. _Lee_

    _Lee_ Geek Trainee

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    Thanks :)
    I'll figure out something about the hdd rack since there are no other free ones.
    The main idea was about the cables, because my ibm originally comes with a ide cable for hdd's that has only one connector and a another ide for 2 cd-rom drives (that are occupied right now), and adding a cable with 2 ide connectors worried me a bit
     
  4. RHochstenbach

    RHochstenbach Administrator

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    You can combine them, but keep in mind that you need to change the jumper setting on the back of each drive if you're putting multiple devices on one IDE Cable. One needs to be set to Master and the other one to Slave.
     
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  5. _Lee_

    _Lee_ Geek Trainee

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    thanks, will keep that in mind :)
     
  6. _Lee_

    _Lee_ Geek Trainee

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    did the changes... everything works! thanks again :D
     
  7. RHochstenbach

    RHochstenbach Administrator

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    you're welcome :)
     

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