Mr Postman Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 Heres a question for the I.T. geeks and computer buildersMy 120GB C: drive is almost full, and I’m looking for more space. I could store all the movable files by burning them onto Data DVD’s 4GB at a time and start again almost from scratch. But if I do that I’m pretty sure it would fill up again in a few months & its not very convenient to use things again when its all on separate disks.What is Best? To do a straight swap & replace the old hard drive with something bigger like 300GB and just re-install everything, or to add an additional one and have the new hard disk as the G: or H: drive? Theres an extra slot for the hard drive to fit into but I’m not sure how to set up partition drives if that’s what’s required and don’t know how to work out all the little slide switches on the disk that sets one drive as the ‘master’ & another as ‘slave’. Does having 2 hard disks cause any problems too?Any helpful…. and preferably idiot proof advice is appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razmatazz Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 Theres an extra slot for the hard drive to fit into but I’m not sure how to set up partition drives if that’s what’s required and don’t know how to work out all the little slide switches on the disk that sets one drive as the ‘master’ & another as ‘slave’. Does having 2 hard disks cause any problems too?<{POST_SNAPBACK}>I'm not really a tec, just learned from experience, you could put two hd in, the one that is already in there will be the 'master' the new one will be slave, if you buy the new one 'new', the instructions will tell you how to put it to slave (where the jumpers go), then just instal the new hd. Thew new hd will run off the same o/s as the master, then start moving things to the new hd directory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highvoltage Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 Get a new one Stinky, and run it as a slave. I currently have a 200GB SATA and an 80 GB IDE drive. I initially had difficulties running the two different types of HDD, as my board is a bit old, but now it's all good. I wanted the SATA as the master and the IDE as the slave -- but it just can't happen, so it's the other way round atm.My suggestion to you is that you get a second Hard Drive of the same connection, then run that as a slave -- why waste that 120GB HD that you've got?Use one Hard Drive for media, and one for Windows and programs.DON'T PARTITION IT. Partitions are old -- you only need them for 98 machines and stuff. It's a waste of time and it's inconvenient. XP can handle big Hard Drives, so there's no need for a partition.It's not hard to work out the Slave/Master switches. If you need a hand with that then I can help when the time comes. B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santana Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 (edited) Adding an additional harddrive isn't very difficult to install and setup, especially with newer operating systems. But if you don't have too much experience with that sort of thing, or are a bit nervous about opening up your machine, I would suggest getting a USB or firewire harddrive. They are a little more expensive than internal drives, but installation is simple. Edited November 30, 2005 by santana Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wile E. Coyote Posted December 1, 2005 Share Posted December 1, 2005 Heres a question for the I.T. geeks and computer buildersMy 120GB C: drive is almost full, and I’m looking for more space. I could store all the movable files by burning them onto Data DVD’s 4GB at a time and start again almost from scratch. But if I do that I’m pretty sure it would fill up again in a few months & its not very convenient to use things again when its all on separate disks.What is Best? To do a straight swap & replace the old hard drive with something bigger like 300GB and just re-install everything, or to add an additional one and have the new hard disk as the G: or H: drive? Theres an extra slot for the hard drive to fit into but I’m not sure how to set up partition drives if that’s what’s required and don’t know how to work out all the little slide switches on the disk that sets one drive as the ‘master’ & another as ‘slave’. Does having 2 hard disks cause any problems too?Any helpful…. and preferably idiot proof advice is appreciated. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>you need to stop downloading all that porn dude, it's wieghing you PC down Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Postman Posted December 1, 2005 Author Share Posted December 1, 2005 you need to stop downloading all that porn dude, it's wieghing you PC down <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Shut it, you cant prove anything I know where you live little boy. ...............................................Thanks everybody, I’ll be getting a new hard drive in the next couple of weeks as an early Xmas present to myself. I’ll try and set it up as an extra drive for storing music & videos and big files on. If I have any problems getting it set up I’ll try and get and answer here. Hopefully there will be some type of instruction sheet with the drive too, which won’t be badly translated Chinese technical gibberish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highvoltage Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 you need to stop downloading all that porn dude, it's wieghing you PC down Shut it, you cant prove anything I know where you live little boy. ...............................................Thanks everybody, I’ll be getting a new hard drive in the next couple of weeks as an early Xmas present to myself. I’ll try and set it up as an extra drive for storing music & videos and big files on. If I have any problems getting it set up I’ll try and get and answer here. Hopefully there will be some type of instruction sheet with the drive too, which won’t be badly translated Chinese technical gibberish.Side note -- it's highly unlikely that an internal hard drive will come with an instruction manual... I've never seen one that has.Fortunately, there's HEAPS of stuff on the internet about it, and if you get stuck, feel free to add me to MSN or send me a PM.Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santana Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 ^ A retail HDD should come with an instruction manual, a setup disk, and a mounting kit. I know that Maxtor's retail kits do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highvoltage Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 ^ A retail HDD should come with an instruction manual, a setup disk, and a mounting kit. I know that Maxtor's retail kits do.Western Digitals and Seagates don't -- they're two mainstream brands that i'm sure of. When I was purchasing my HDD, I asked my IT teacher about manuals and he said it was highly unlikely that i'd get one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Postman Posted December 18, 2005 Author Share Posted December 18, 2005 Yay! 420gb, i sucessfully put an extra drive in yesterday without fucking my PC up I seen there was external external hard drives available that just plug into a USB port, but they were dearer and only went up to 250gb. I might have been gigabyte greed or penny pinching but i decided to be daring and open up the case. I got and fitted the hard drive no problems but then had to go back to the shop to get a 1 into 2 power splitter thing so there was power to it. It was a Maxtor drive, There was no paper instructions at all with but a little diagram on top said the the little "jumper" tab or whatever its called just had to be taken out completely to make it a 2nd drive instead of master. It didnt need formatting or partitioning or any technical stuff. It didnt show up as a new drive stright away, so i had a look at the a couple of sites and fiddled around in the control panel to make it an active drive and give it a new drive letter. I've moved all my pictures/videos/music and changed a few desktop shortcuts. All i need to do now is a defragment and start filling both drives up with new rubbish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gnr>everything Posted December 18, 2005 Share Posted December 18, 2005 Nice job. B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highvoltage Posted December 19, 2005 Share Posted December 19, 2005 There was no paper instructions at all...Told you santana!Congrats Stinky! Glad it all worked out for you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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