I have a PC with a 2.5 GB HDD. I would like to add an old 0.5 GB HDD (I cannot find anything larger at present, because of the limitatons of my 1995 BIOS which wont support modern drives). I notice that the HDD already installed has an 8 pin power connector, but the 0.5GB dirve has a 4 pin power connector. This is useful because the PSU has two 4 pin power connectors, either of which, I presume, can be used. What I want to know is whether there are any precautions I need to take before adding the drive (apart from the usual anti-static ones) - I dont want to risk damaging my pc by adding an incompatible HDD. IF it doesnt work that's OK, so long as I can remove it and everything will go back to normal. My other issue concerns drive mapping - my 2.5 GB HDD has a partition so there are two drive letters, C and D. However, with the addition of the "new" drive, D will become E - is there any way of preventing this and making the "new" drive become E instead, so that I dont have to reset a whole load of directory paths etc? Thanks

is your 2.5g setup as master or slave

here is a guy in Nova scotia selling 6.5 amd a 8 gig hard drives : troydunlap@hotmail.com

A BIOS update may help with your HDD limit...or there is software available that will allow you to bypass the BIOS limitations. Western Digital for example has a program called EZBIOS. Maxtor has a similar program. It can be downloaed from their websites or if you buy a new drive, it's included on the installation/diagnostic floppy. Your 2.5gb HDD is partitioned? What do you use the 2nd partition for? What are your plans for this 0.5gb drive? I suggest you move the data from the 2nd partition to the smaller drive, then merge the 2.5 drive into a single partition...Partiton Magic or a similar program will work.

Thanks for tips. Am in UK so not practicable to order from Novia Scotia. Didnt realise new drives might have a software utility to bypass BIOS limitations so will look into this. Not keen on flashing the BIOS as can be risky. I think main HDD is set to master on the Primary IDE controller; the secondary IDE controller has a CD-ROM drive attached with a cable allowing for another hard drive to be fitted. Am going to use the current D partition for swap file, temporary internet files etc. the new drive will be for my data. C will be for programmes. As I said main concern is with safety of the procedure - dont mind if things dont work so long as easy to get everything back to the way it was.

If you want to keep your current D: drive as D:, partition the new drive as an extended partition (not a Primary partition). It will then be assigned E:.