I am having a problem hooking up my 2nd hard drive. I really don't know a lot about the insides of the computer, but i'm trying to learn. I have all the wires, and everything, but when i have the wire that fits the HD, then i bring it down to the mother board, and it doesn't fit...but i don't think it will work if you plug in the short one on the hard drive so it will fit on the mother board...please help me... and one other thing...there is only supposed to be that wire that transmits the data, and the power cord to the hardrive, correct? Email me with some pictures or some GOOD instructions on how to fix this problem!! Thanks a million!!!

There are a lot of "how to's" with pictures out there. Do a google search or go to the hds web site and look there. first thing you will learn about is terminalogy. Your "wires" are ide ribbon cables [called that because they are flat like a ribbon]. If your hd cable is correctly installed on the drive then it will fit in the ide slot. Only "small" slot is for the floppy drive. Unless things are really confused and you are trying to connect a scsi drive then the cable will be too large to fit the ide slot [thankgoodness!] I HIGHLY suggest you don't "play" with plugging cables. You get the wrong stuff connected and you could toast your system. Read the faqs and follow the web page instuctions and you will be fine.

John, adding a 2nd drive is one of the easiest things to do. It's a good place to start learning about your computer. I will assume that your first drive is running ok. #1: On the rear of your 2nd drive is a small jumper switch. It's usually a tiny little tab that you can grip with your fingernails and GENTLY pull straight out. It must be reinserted as SLAVE. Your main drive is already set to Master. This is important. #2: You can see where the new drive physically mounts into your case. #3: There are two (2) cables that connect into your Slave. The wide one is your data cable from the motherboard. The narrow one is your power cable. Both of these are already plugged(on one end)in to the motherboard in your computer. Data: find the data cable coming out of your Master Harddrive. On that cable there will be two connectors, one on the end and one in the middle. One of them is already plugged into your master. Find the other one and plug it into your slave drive (sometimes it gets pretty tight if there isn't a lot of slack; it should be keyed, so pay attention and fit the little key tab into the slot. That is because the #1 pin MUST go on the Right of the Slave, or the mobo won't see your drive. Do NOT use your CDROM cable; all CDROMS and harddrives must be on their own cables, not mixed. Okay, now find a free power cable in your unit. There should be at least a couple of them, and plug one in. Your installation is complete. If you aren't sure, see the plugs and cables already hooked to your Master, and do the same thing with the same type of cable to your Slave. Easy. I will assume that you know how to partition and format your drive, so I won't go into that. If not, post back, or there are lots of sites that will tell you how. POst back and let us know how it went. It's easy.

I know how to hook it up, but there are 50 pins in the back of my hard drive, but there isn't a 50 socket spot on my Mother Board...there's only 34, so i think i need an adaptor! :) Please respond! :)