Installing A Second Hard Drive
Now that you have removed your old Hard Drive and replaced itwith a new what did you do with the old drive? If it was not defective,why not use it by installing it as a second storage device. Here wewill show you how to install a second hard drive and gain more storage space.
Before you remove the system unit cover to gain access to your hard drive, remember to remove any and all ESD (Electrical Static Discharge) from your body. This is done by touching an object such as a doorknob or the case of the system unit. After this safety precaution is done, remove the system unit cover and locate the drive. Then look to be sure you have empty drive bays to install that second drive.
Once the drive is clear of other cables and components, carefully remove the data cable from the drive Some drives are mountedon rails, and you may need to place your second drive on rails.These rails will most likely come with a new drive or you can purchase them at any computer supply store.
Here to write down any information on the front of the drive that may give you the type, model number, sectors, cylinders, access time and other data. You may need it when you configure the hard drive. Nearly all new drives have software that does this for you.
The Ribbon cable has two connections. Be sure it can reachboth drives. Check the power supply to see if there is a free power connector. Place the second drive in the empty bay after you have decided which drive will be the Master andthe slave drive. The master drive must be the one you useto boot from.
It will have an operating system, such as Windows 98,etc. The jumpers on each drive must be set to be recognized by the computer as master and slave. Check the drive's manual or visit the drive's support site to find out how the jumpers should be set.
Once you have set the jumpers as master and slave, you can nowsecure the the second drive in the empty bay with screws. Attachthe Ribbon cable with the center connector to the slave drive andthe end connector to your master or boot drive. Connect the powercable from the power supply and now you are ready to boot thecomputer.
If the master drive has an operating system already installed, thecomputer will boot up from that drive and recognized the otherdrives and assign each with drive letters. If both drives are newyou will need your Startup Disk to boot up the computer.
Once the computer boots, you can use the software utilities that came with the drives to perform the format and partition procedures. After these steps has been completed the PC will tell you when to install the operating system.