I would like to add a pre-existing hard drive to another computer in my home. My previous computer is very old but I had put a new hard drive in a couple years ago so the hard drive is still good. I want to take out that hard drive and add it to another computer that I have, that has a smaller hard drive. I have read about adding a fresh hard drive but not sure the process on adding a hard drive with data on it that I would like to keep. I'm dealing with two Win98 computers. Any help would be great.

I'm pretty sure if you set the jumpers on the 2nd HD to slave that it will work fine with 98. Just make sure the main HD is jumpered as master. Some HELP in posting on Cnet plus free progs and instructions Glad to Help!

It shouldn't be a problem as long as the bios on the PC you want it added to can see it OK. You'd have to check to see how the existing drives are cabled now. But for example if you have one hard drive on the primary IDE connection and a cdrom on the secondary IDE connection you could add the drive as a 'slave' on the cable with the other hard drive. In this way you'll continue to boot from the smaller drive and the added, larger, drive will show up in 'my computer' and can be accessed. (When both drives are set 'active' by fdisk the OS on the primary master will be booted.) You'll need to check the drive jumpers. The smaller drive will need to be jumpered as Master and the added drive jumpered as Slave. Or, using Cable Select, the smaller drive will need to be on the connection on the end of the cable and the added drive on the middle connection. You'll need to make sure the added drive is properly identified in cmos/bios setup--usually as AUTO. If it's not being seen and everything above checks out OK then most likely either: 1) It's too large for the bios to see or 2) The added drive has a drive overlay or 3) It's partitioned differently.

Are you familar will how to jumper the hard and/or CD drives, connect them to the data cables, when you add a drive? What model is the computer you want to install the drive from the older computer in? I ask that because - the newer computer may require you use an 80 wire data cable with the drive from the older computer to allow it to run at it's fastest speeds. - that will allow us to point you to where drivers you will need for the mboard are on the web. If the drive from the old computer is newer and capable of faster data speeds than the smaller drive presently in the newer computer, your newer computer will boot faster and Windows will run things faster if the newer drive is the drive you boot Windows from. You could still have the smaller drive connecteed as it already is if you like - the following assumes you want to boot from the drive from the older computer, and/or allows you to boot from either hard drive. You can either connect that drive from the older computer jumpered as master on the first Primary IDE mboard connector and jumper the smaller drive as slave on the same data cable, or connect the drive however you like and change the boot order settings in the bios Setup to boot from it. If you don't run Setup on either hard drive, both drives will remain bootable. If you run Setup on a hard drive, if the other drive is connected and visible to Windows, only the drive partition Windows is Setup on will be bootable after Setup is finished (that can be changed later if the need to boot either arises). You can select which drive boots by setting the bios to boot from that drive first, or by using third party multiboot software. If you ever run Setup in the future, if you still wont both drives to be bootable, disconnect the data cable to the drive you are not running Setup on while running Setup and it will remain bootable. You probably won't need to run Windows Setup on the drive from the older computer. If you boot from it, the first time you boot Windows will find the mboard and hardware are different and will load some devices while booting - it will take a lot longer than usual to get to the desktop screen. It may ask for the Windows CD to be inserted - bear in mind the drive letter of the CD drive may be different than it was on the old computer and you may have to correct what drive letter the Cd is on and where Windows looks on the CD and point it to the \win98 folder on the CD. It may need to reboot several times while doing this. Once that is finished you should have video but it may be crude because Windows may need drivers for the video card or onboard video. You then need to load the drivers for the newer mboard, particularly it's main chipset, and drivers any cards or devices Windows hasn't found the drivers for. .................. Do this ONLY if you must! If Windows does not boot all the way when you connect and boot from the drive from the older computer, or if you get no video or some other problem..... - make certain your bios Setup is detecting the drive. If it isn't you have the drive jumpered incorrectly or connected to the data cable wrong, or settings in the bios Setup are wrong. Let us know if you have problems with that. - Disconnect the data cable to the other drive if you still want to be able to boot from either drive (I'm assuming it's jumpered as slave) while running Setup. Insert the Windows CD of the same version as on the drive in a CD drive. At this point you can boot with the win 98 CD but only if it is a full version. Upgrade CDs are not bootable. Your bios Setup must have a cd drive listed in the boot order before all hard drive in order to boot from the CD. Or Boot the computer with a Win 98 or 98SE Startup floppy, whatever the version is on the drive. Your bios Setup must have a floppy drive listed in the boot order before a CD drive and all hard drives in order to boot from the floppy. In most newer bioses you can set that to floppy drive or A, then CD drive, then hard drive or drives and that can be used for all boot situations. In either case...... Let it load the support for a CD drive, the default. When the files have finished loading from the CD or the floppy, type: setup (press Enter) at the prompt. Answer Yes to adding large hard drive support or similar. That does no harm to the data on the drive. If you install Windows in the SAME location Windows is already in, you will not lose any of the settings and program installations already on the hard drive - that's called an "overtop" Setup. Install Windows in the SAME location it is already in - by default that is C:\Windows but Setup may have some other location as a default - change it to C:\Windows if it's something else. Setup proceeds pretty much normally, except you will probably not be asked to provide the Product Key, and you will be asked far fewer questions. When Setup is finished, it has installed enough drivers for Windows to work and you should have video but it may be crude. Install the mboard chipset and card drivers, same as above. ..... Once both hard drives are running..... Windows 98 and 98SE assign drive letters like so: 1st partion, first hard drive is C 1st partition second hard drive is D If there are more hard drives, the first partition on each is next, in the order they are detected by Windows. The CD drive is always the first available drive letter after all the hard drive partitions have been assigned a drive letter by default, but you can assign a higher drive letter to it later in Device Manager. If both hard drives have only one partition, and there is only two hard drives, the CD drive is E. Other partitions on the physical hard drives are next. If there is a 2nd partion first hard drive, it is E. If there are more partitions on the first hard drive they are listed in alphabetical order next. If there are more partitions on the second hard drive they are listed in alphabetical order next. Bear in mind the drive letter of the CD drive will be different than it was when there was only one hard drive connected. and you may have to correct what drive letter the a CD is on and where Windows looks on the CD and point it to the \win98 folder on the CD if it is the Windows CD. If you alternate which drive boots, the drive letters are according to how that Windows installation sees them. The Windows installation that boots is always C, the first partition on the drive that booted, and the first partition on the second drive, the one that wasn't booted, is always D. If there is one partition on each drive, the drive letters are all the same. If there is more than one partition on either or both of the drives, the drive letters will apply to different partitions other than C and D, depending on which hard drive was booted, according to the assignment rules.

Tubes, your wealth of knowledge, knows no boundaries :) i'm taking a copy of the above. i'll leave my money on the fridge on the way out LOL cheers :) EDIT: concerning this post from the other day >>>>> http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... i was totally unaware that you could put a Master jumpered HDD on the middle connector and a Slave jumpered HDD/Optical on the end of an IDE cable. I always thought that the master jumpered device HAD TO BE connected to the END connector. learn something everyday:) . Central Coast NSW Aussie There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't.

"I always thought that the master jumpered device HAD TO BE connected to the END connector. learn something everyday:)" As noted, that only applies when you jumper the drives cable select. Another tidbit. In theory a data cable could be cable select only if one wire is not connected between the middle and end connector for the drives on a 3 connector data cable, but I have not encountered any such cable, 40 wire or 80 wire. All the 80 wire data cables I've tried have worked with both CS and master/slave jumpered drives (one or the other at a time on the same cable), and must have the correct connector plugged into the mboard for some reason I haven't found, but on all the 40 wire cables I've tried the latter isn't mandatory. An older hard drive (UDMA33 or less), or any CD drive, or an older DVD burner drive (less than 16X DVD +R/-R), or any DVDrom only or DVDrom/CDrom or DVD rom/CD burner drive works fine with a 40 wire cable connected to any connector on a 3 connector cable if the drives are jumpered master and slave. I've had the end connector normally used on the mboard end on a drive many times when two drives were mounted too far apart for the cable connectors to reach both the normal way, and I'm pretty sure I've even tried connecting the middle connector to the mboard and that works fine with drives connected to the other two. A drive on the same cable that normally requires an 80 wire cable will work on any connector on a 40 wire cable work too if jumpered master/slave, but will not be able to run as fast as intended, and an optical drive that requires an 80 wire cable will probably not be detected properly in Windows.

I've run across many 80-wire cables in which a piece of one wire about 2 mm was cut from the cable. I believe these cables can only be used as cable select. (I'd noticed it first on compaqs where the drives were always CS) Another thing, I upgraded someone's PC from 98 to XP. There were two hard drives on an 80-wire cable jumpered master and slave. The slave was on the end connection rather than the master. 98 had no problem seeing the master-jumpered drive as C: but when I installed XP it gave the slave drive the C: designation and the master as either E: or F:. It was as though the drive jumpers were being ignored and their position on the cable determined the drive letter. If I'd had more time with it I would have experimented a little more. But as it was I just pointed it out to him so he'd know what drive to defrag.