Tom's Guide | Tom's Hardware | Tom's Games
 |
 |
 |
Okay so I'm trying to setup dual hard drives on my system, and just had a few quick questions.
1. which Hard Drive does the 'power cable' plug into; the master, or the slave? Or do you plug in power supplies to both of them? I only see one power supply free inside my PC. Am I missing something?
2. I'm pretty sure both the hard drive jumpers are set on Cable Select by default, would that be fine? Or should I change it manually to Master/Slave?
First time doing this, so just making sure I'm doing everything right.
I have a Dell Dimension 3000 with IDE WD600 hard drives if this helps any.
-Jim
You need a power cable for both hard drives. If you only have one free, you should be able to get an adapter that would allow you to connect the second drive. Cable Select should be fine. I assume these are not sata drives.
0 
Yes, both drives need a power cable. If there is only one free, you will have to buy a "splitter" as I call it.
You can set them to cable select. I don't know how well it works, because i've always set them to master/slave. For you, the beginner, I recommend cable select.
Oh yeah, when plugging in the power cable, the red wire is to the very left. A good tip to remember so you don't plug it in backwards.
Also, if you do set it to master/slave, only set one to master and one to slave if they are both connected to one IDE cable. If they are each on a separate cable, set them both to master. If they are both on one cable, set the most important hard drive (most likely the one with the OS on it) to master.
One more thing - they say that if you hook a hard drive and a CD drive on the same cable, it really slows the hard drive down. Hook both hard drives on one cable and any CD drive(s) on another cable. If a CD drive has to be on the same cable as a hard drive, set the hard drive to master and the CD drive to slave.
Hope this helps,
-Trent
"If at first you don't succeed, skydiving may not be for you."
-Our tour guide at Fenway Park in Boston, MA.
0
ok so I found unused power cables inside the PC, labeled P5/P6 had black rubber covers on it and I used one to power the 2nd drive.
I have the slave drive plugged in the middle of the IDE ribbon cable, and the master is plugged into the end.all seems to be fine, but when I turn on the pc, BIOS tells me something like "Primary Hard Drive 0 can not be recognized"
everything seems to be setup fine, anyone know what I'm doing wrong?
I'm pretty sure both jumpers are set to Cable Select by default, but I will check in the hard drive manual to make sure. is this likely the problem?
both drives work fine individually and both have WinXP installed
thank you for all the help
-Jim
0
"they say that if you hook a hard drive and a CD drive on the same cable, it really slows the hard drive down"
That hasn't been the case since the early days of the socket 7 (over 10 yrs ago). All chipsets since then support "independent device timing" which basically means that if 2 IDE devices are paired up on the same cable, they will each run at their respective speed.
It's actually best NOT to put 2 HDD's on the same cable/channel. The reason being is that only one device can use the channel at a time. That means that if you're transferring data from HDD-1 to HDD-2, it will take longer because HDD-2 has to wait for the HDD-1 to finish using the channel before it can begin to use it. However, data transfers from one channel to another can be processed by both devices at the same time.
If you have 3 devices (2 HDDs & 1 optical), the ideal configuration for optimal data transfers is:
primary master = HDD w/OS
primary slave = none
2ndary master = optical drive
2ndary slave = 2nd HDDOr as an alternate:
primary master = HDD w/OS
primary slave = none
2ndary master = 2nd HDD
2ndary slave = optical driveUsing the master/slave jumper is generally the preferred method. When doing so, you can place the drives on either connector & the jumper will dictate the master or slave. If you use cable select, the drive connected to the end plug will always be the master & the drive on the center plug will always be the slave. For whatever reason, *some* Dell systems prefer cable select.
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/i...
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/i...
http://www.computing.net/answers/ha...
"If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions" - Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) in Pulp Fiction
0
If you leave them on the same cable you need to be more than 'pretty sure' they're both jumpered as cable select. The various jumper positions are usually on the drive label.
0 0
ok, I have it setup fine now and everything works.
for some reason, it didn't read the drives when they were both set on Cable Select. I had to change the jumpers specifically to master/slave for it to work.I'd like to say thanks for all the replies, it helps a lot.
my only concern is, when i delete/move files or perform actions on the slave drive, I can hear the drive spinning / making noise, and it's fairly noisy. it was never noisy like that as an individual drive. is this normal?
right now I have both drives on the same IDE cable hooked in the primary IDE channel.
But I might follow jam's recommendation and put them on seperate channels.and to itguru: I used a 40 wire cable. reason was, my PC was already using 40 wire, and I wanted to take the safe-route and use what I already knew would work. should I of bought an 80 wire cable instead?
these are all just curiousity questions.. my main questions already solved:)
-Jim
0
http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos...
Personally always use 80wire Cables on PC nowadays...
0  |
 |
 |
This post is quite old and has been locked from receiving new replies. Please create a new posting instead.
| Ads by Google |
