OT - Installing new hard drive

Stonefield wrote on 10/28/2006, 2:53 PM

Hey guys, how's your weekend goin ? Good , good...

I bought a new 320 gig hard drive today. Just over a hundred bucks too. Don't ya just love being involved in digital videomaking and seeing storage space become so inexpensive ??? Love it...

Anyhoo, I'm "somewhat" technically adept, meaning I know how to install RAM, sound cards, vid cards, even installed my new 500w power supply myself last month. Anyone got a link to a site that can walk me thru installing this new internal drive ? I could probably figure it out but it's the switches ( master/slave ) thing I'm fuzzy about and what cord to use. Although the new modular PS I have has made that a lot more simple....

Any input at all would be appreciated. Any of you that know me know I'm more the photographer than the computer hardware guy.....

Thanks guys,

Stonefield ( Stan )

PS, watch for two new girl videos soon....Oh, and a fashion show this weekend. Lot's of fun.

Comments

DrLumen wrote on 10/28/2006, 3:08 PM

Set the jumper to cable select (which it should have) and you shouldn't have to worry about it.

Master means it will be the primary drive and the slave a secondary drive. If you plug the new drive in with the connector at the end of the cable then set the jumper to master. If there is another drive on that same cable (connected with the middle plug), set that drive to slave. Vice-versa if you use the new drive with the middle connector. In short, the end drive is the master and the middle drive is the slave. Windows likes to boot from the master (or end) drive.

If only one drive on the cable (chain) set it to master.

After that with XP you mount the drive within the control panel and Adminstrative Tools. Then click on Computer Mgmt. Then, under Disk Management, click on the Storage icon on the right side of the screen. You then select what type of partition, usually extended unless you want to be able to boot from it, then set 1 or more partitions (eventually leading to creating drive letters) and then format and assign drive letter(s).

I may have missed a step or 2 as I was doing it from memory but this will be close enough so you can figure out any missed steps.

Good luck!

riredale wrote on 10/28/2006, 3:45 PM

It depends on what kind of drive you have. I'd suggest running the installation software that came with the drive.

DelCallo wrote on 10/28/2006, 4:35 PM

Agree that you should run the software that came with the drive. Just be certain you identify the new drive so that you don't accidentally format your main system drive.
Installing a new drive is probably far less complicated than some of the other computer tasks you already have experience with.

Good luck and enjoy that great big drive.

Caruso

TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/28/2006, 5:13 PM

it might NOT be a good idea to run the software on the drive unless it says you MUST run the software. On my WD 160gb I ran the software. When I re-formatted my PC, I removed the drive before I installed windows. After installing windows, I couldn't install the drive software because the drive wasn't there. I hooked the drive back up & the drive went :p because the software wasn't installed.

So for my next HD, i didn't bother using the software.

EDIT: You should take out any drive that will be hooked up to the same IDE cable & double check if it's master, slave, or cable select (IE CS). IF you don't setup the new drive to work with the origional, odds are neigther will work (they won't be damaged, just won't work). If the origional is CS, set the new one to CS, or set both to a master/slave setup. With master/slave, it does NOT matter which part of the cable it's plugged in to.

This is really important if it's a pre-built PC (dell, etc) because all those i've used are setup in CS mode & putting a drive in there set to master/slave would mess things up. I've ALWAYS set up my drive in pc's i've made to master/slave manually, so i don't have any doubt on what's what. Get a round IDE cable of you can too. They're cheap and a lot easier to work with then the flat ones.

Steve Mann wrote on 10/29/2006, 12:28 AM

I agree - don't run the SW that comes with the new HD. It usually assumes that you are replacing your boot drive.

Almost all installations these days are 'cable select', so just find an empty connector, plus it in and find the disk management tools. One of the drives will be unformatted - that's the one you want to format. Just follow the defaults.

It *is* an IDE drive, not a SATA drive?

Steve M.

Stonefield wrote on 10/29/2006, 1:01 AM

I guess it might help to add the drive I bought...

HERE

Hmmmm.....just found out I have a 7200.10 rpm drive. It uses the new "perpendictual recording method." There's a link on that same page that explains that. Sounds interesting.

Stan

craftech wrote on 10/29/2006, 5:09 AM

Stan,

We need more information such as:

-Motherboard and bios
-Existing drives (model numbers)
-Will this one replace one of them or if it will be an addition?

Advice above NOT to install software that came with it was good advice.

Fortunately the drive has a 5-year warranty. That particular drive has had some failures. If it ever starts making noise (grinding, chirping, scraping) send it in for repair -replacement IMMEDIATELY.

John