Question on Hard Drive(s): Help!

[Vrylakas]

Greetings,

I am thinking of installing a 2nd harddrive in my 2 year old Gateway w/ 650 processor. My current hard drive is a baby drive (10megs) and is simply chock full. I was already about to do a much-needed memory upgrade and thought while I have the damned thing open....

Questions:

1. Is this something that a reasonably-intelligent person with a limited understanding of hardware can do? I've done things like installed my own CD burner before with little difficulty.

2. What cost range am I looking at for a decent harddrive (in USD)?

3. Any operating system issues I need to be aware of? (In other words, can I expect my Windows 98 system to cough up some fatal errors - more than usual, I mean?)

Thanks in advance for all help -

 

[starlifter]

I was going to help you, until I read your stab at my Governor in your sig.!

LOL, I'll see if I can help anyway .


1. Yes.


2. About $60 (for 20GB) to $90 (for 80GB) USD. Very very cheap.

This store is one I use a lot:

http://infotechnow.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=ISI&Category_Code=HDI

3. Yes, if you run MS OSs. You should consult the MS knowledgebase and check up if you are using more than a 32GB drive, and certain controller chips from Intel, in particular. MS refuses to fix certain problems, even though the acknowledge that those problems with MS Windows exist. I've had to take back drives when installing/upgrading systems of people in Europe recently. Your system may not be affected at 650, that's right on the bubble. What chipset does your Motherboard run? Since you didn't post it, if I had to guess, I'd say you're safe, based on buying it 2 years ago, assuming you bought an up to date system at the time. Just search KB for your specific hardare (motherboard, then exact chipset).

If you buy a 30GB or smaller drive, you'll be fine. But the real price value is a drive in the 60-80GB range, so take the time to look, or else buy locally were you can return the drive easily if it does not work right (and you will know right away, since the system will not boot into Win98 if MS has hit you with this problem).

 

[BlueMonday]

If you've ever installed any hardware in your computer, installing a new hard drive will be cake. Even if you didn't, it isn't hard to install at all. The only thing you'll have to do differently then you did when you installed your burner is spend some time in the BIOS, but the installation instructions that come with the drive will cover that fine. I just installed an 80 GB HD a few months ago (at the then good price of $150) and the only hard part is trying to get the screws on the otherside of the mounting bay to go in straight.

One thing to make sure of is that you have an ATA/EIDE cable open. On most motherboards, if you already have four drives (usually excluding the 3.5" floppy) you'll be out of drives and either have to remove one or install an ATA PCI adapter card (about $40). If all you've got is a CD ROM, CD-RW, A 3.5" floppy, and one hard drive you should have an open adapter. In addition, don't slave one hard drive to another, it will create some serious issues. When I installed my new HD I had to do some juggling to open up a good spot for the new drive by slaving the CD-ROM to the old HD, and then slaving the new HD to the CD-RW.

When it comes to Windows compatability, you really only need to worry if you have Win95, 95B, or 98. All of those OSs can only handle up to 32GB on a drive. If you have 98SE or ME, then you're capped at 128 GB. NT, 2000, XP, Apple, Linux, and Unix are capped at 138 GB, but these OSs are still undergoing development so you can expect the max capacity to continue increasing.

 

[Vrylakas]

Thanks again for the help!

I'll probably get around to this in September, and I'll drop a line to let you know if the operation was a success!

And Starlifter, feel free to mock Jim McGreevey anytime. I gotta tell ya though, you probably don't want to know some of the more unpleasant things I've said about your ex-governor....

Thanks again! To quote Gene Wilder's character in Young Frankenstein: IT....COULD....WORK!

 

[muppet]

Blue Monday:

Why is it not a good idea to slave one hard drive to another? I'm running a machine that came packaged with the HD's on the same IDE cable. Is it a priority to relocate my drives?

 

[Pillager]

I don't think it is a problem to have master and slave HDs on the same cable, although it may be if they're not the same brand.
It used to be that you shouldn't have a HD and CD on the same cable, as it would slow the HD down, but I'm not sure that any of that matters now.

 

[BlueMonday]

Originally posted by muppet
Why is it not a good idea to slave one hard drive to another? I'm running a machine that came packaged with the HD's on the same IDE cable. Is it a priority to relocate my drives?

With older motherboards, transferring files to from one hard drive to the other would slow down both drives. A lot of errors would occur and sometimes if a running program couldn't retrieve data on one of the drives it would crash. But as pillager pointed out, newer models have cured most of those problems. Still, I consider it good measure to keep hard drives on seperate IDE cables.