Installing new hard drive...what do I need to know??

Stephen P · 13-01-2005 1:00am #1

I'm thinking about installing a new hard drive, what do I need to be looking at spec. wise on my current setup?

At the moment my spec. is: 80GB Hard Drive, 256MB RAM, 2.4GHz P4, Win XP Pro. (please ask if you need more info on spec.)
I was thinking about getting a 160GB hard drive or even 120GB, would this work with my current spec.?

Advice greatly appreciated!

SP

Creamy Goodness · 13-01-2005 1:02am

yes, so long as it's set to a slave drive (there's a jumper setting on hard drive to do this) then xp pro should recognise it automatically and it will pop up in My Computer

Stephen P · 13-01-2005 1:07am

Thanks for your reply!!
Also I meant to ask, I would be using this for the storage of files, would this be ok? I wouldn't have to install XP Pro on it, would I?
Is there an actual switch on the hard drive its self to set it to slave??

jimmycrackcorm · 13-01-2005 1:26am

The jumper for slave is between the power cable and the IDE/SATA cable. the jumper settings are shown on the drive label.

you don't need to install anything...
set the jumper, plug in the cables and fix to the drive cage.

Once up in windows xp you need to format the drive - this is in the control panel / administrative tools / disk management. right click on the drive and select format.

you might want to create smaller partitions first though if for example you wnated to install linux as a second operating system on a partition at some point in the future.

evilhomer · 13-01-2005 1:31am

on the back of the hard drive where you plug in the power and the IDE cable (i'm assuming you only have IDE and not SATA) there is a small set of pins, two pins have what looks like a little piece of plastic over them (thats the jumper). there should be writing on the hard drive telling you which pins to put the jumper on for slave or master. just pop it off with a needle nose plyers and put it on the slave pins.
thats it, really easy to do.

you don't need to put and operating system on it. you will have to format it though. NTFS is probably your best option.
rightclick on the drive when it's in my computer and then simply click format and pick full format!

then you are good to go

Nukem · 13-01-2005 8:49am

You never specified if you had an IDE(ATA) or SATA HDD or both

On the off chance installing a IDE & SATA

skywalker · 13-01-2005 9:40am

quite surprised no ones mentioned anything about this but theres a little rigamarole with drives over 137gb. im not entirely sure what extras intailed in installing em but theres one or 2 more steps. im sure someone else will expand on this.

ChRoMe · 13-01-2005 9:43am

You can avoid the chance of any conflicts by setting the jumper to CS (Cable select)

GreeBo · 13-01-2005 9:48am

CS is the default/factory setting for drives
You probably wont have to touch the jumpers
try it and if it doesnt work then change the jumpers, you wont break anything if its wrong

hefty_langer · 13-01-2005 10:32am

Yep - the deal here is if you have XP Pro with SP1a or later you have nothing to worry about... If you are not SP'd to there, theres a utility from eith Seagate/WD/Fujitsu that'll enable 48bit LBA-ing...
read more here if you need to: http://www.ocfaq.com/article.php/other/83

skywalker wrote:

quite surprised no ones mentioned anything about this but theres a little rigamarole with drives over 137gb. im not entirely sure what extras intailed in installing em but theres one or 2 more steps. im sure someone else will expand on this.

skywalker · 13-01-2005 10:45am

hefty_langer wrote:

Yep - the deal here is if you have XP Pro with SP1a or later you have nothing to worry about... If you are not SP'd to there, theres a utility from eith Seagate/WD/Fujitsu that'll enable 48bit LBA-ing...
read more here if you need to: http://www.ocfaq.com/article.php/other/83

so if you have xp sp1a or later you dont have to mess about flashing mobo bios's or any of that crack?

hefty_langer · 13-01-2005 10:54am

afaik its sort with the SP - I know thats I had to do on my machine - although its only a year old - depend how old your BIOS is I guess?

NotMe · 13-01-2005 1:45pm

hefty_langer wrote:

afaik its sort with the SP - I know thats I had to do on my machine - although its only a year old - depend how old your BIOS is I guess?

Yep, I've a three year old pc with SP1 and no problems installing a 200GB harddrive.

gamer · 13-01-2005 3:42pm

make sure knock OFF power completely to pc unplug esb socket,pc plug, if u just shut down winxp theres a risk static electricity damaging ur mobo or hd pcb.knock off power rear of pc switch and plug out power from esbsocket on wall.

Installing new hard drive...what do I need to know??

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