Quick Tech Question

[sirpaul1]

I'm thinking of buying another hard drive for my pc seems like there's some good deals at www.bigpockets.co.uk do I need to make sure of anything before i buy one.

I don't have a clue, does it have to be the same speed or have the same cache as my primary drive?

[Musicb0ffin]

You saw the good offers as well, eh? All you need to be sure of is having a free IDE lead in your pc. Hard disks, CD ROMs, ZIP drives all require 1 IDE, and you can have 4 IDE devices. As long as you have 1 IDE free and a spare power lead, you can use it. It can be a completely different spec, it will still work. Hope that helps.

[sirpaul1]

Cheers thanks for that. looks like another 160Gb for me.

[FU_Too]

You saw the good offers as well, eh? All you need to be sure of is having a free IDE lead in your pc. Hard disks, CD ROMs, ZIP drives all require 1 IDE, and you can have 4 IDE devices. As long as you have 1 IDE free and a spare power lead, you can use it. It can be a completely different spec, it will still work. Hope that helps.
You'll also have to format and partition it before you can use it :)

[deviat0r]

Hello,

Depending on how old/up-to-date ya PC is, you may struggle getting an older PC to see a 160Gb drive without overlay software, which I avoid at all costs.

If your machine is recent, there is still a chance that it will not work natively and will require you to flash the BIOS so it can address all the free space.

For reference, this block is at 137Gb. So don't be suprised if thats all you can see of the HD.

Let me know if that happens and I'll try talk ya through it!

Dave!

P.S. Oh yeah, one other thing not mentioned here.... each drive (CD or HD) has a Master/Slave setting. Both drives need to be on the oppersite settings. i.e. the hd needs to be master and cd slave or vice-versa. On top of that the position on the cable can make a difference. There is normally a blue connector, this goes to the motherboard. The connector furthest away from that one is normally the Master connector and the middle connector is the Slave.

[sirpaul1]

@deviat0r

I think you'll be hearing from me when my hard drive arrives, my computers about a year old and already has a 120Gb HD full of stuff, Getting the new drive to use NTFS so can get files larger than 4GB, some of my software is FAT32 only. :)

cheers paul.

[deviat0r]

@deviat0r

I think you'll be hearing from me when my hard drive arrives, my computers about a year old and already has a 120Gb HD full of stuff, Getting the new drive to use NTFS so can get files larger than 4GB, some of my software is FAT32 only. :)

cheers paul.

If it's a year old then there is a very good chance that you will need to flash the bios. In which case you need to known EXACTLY which motherboard you have. Make, model, bios make and if applicable revision.

Apart from that give me a shout when your ready or if ya struggle!

Dave!

[Musicb0ffin]

Hello,

Depending on how old/up-to-date ya PC is, you may struggle getting an older PC to see a 160Gb drive without overlay software, which I avoid at all costs.

If your machine is recent, there is still a chance that it will not work natively and will require you to flash the BIOS so it can address all the free space.

For reference, this block is at 137Gb. So don't be suprised if thats all you can see of the HD.

Let me know if that happens and I'll try talk ya through it!

Dave!

P.S. Oh yeah, one other thing not mentioned here.... each drive (CD or HD) has a Master/Slave setting. Both drives need to be on the oppersite settings. i.e. the hd needs to be master and cd slave or vice-versa. On top of that the position on the cable can make a difference. There is normally a blue connector, this goes to the motherboard. The connector furthest away from that one is normally the Master connector and the middle connector is the Slave.

Oh, yeah, forgot to mention that. There are patches out to fix it, so you'll need to get hold of one of them. Or, just put up with the smaller disk... Whichever is easier.

[sirpaul1]

I thought this was gonna be easy, I've seen other people rrip systems apart and stick em together again. Why can't it always be that easy. Hopefully I'll find out this week.

cheers guys.

[sirpaul1]

Right just got my new hard drive today first mistake ordered 180Gb (no problem), 2nd mistake no screws (nicked some from work).

Manged to wire up correctly and plug in ok, currently formatting drive partitions so hopefully will show up on computer shortly. While going through a prog called Computer Maqnagment from Accessories section of xp prgram groups. Device is 171703 Mb but now i'm formatting says 167.68 GB does this mean I should really update my bios?

[deviat0r]

Right just got my new hard drive today first mistake ordered 180Gb (no problem), 2nd mistake no screws (nicked some from work).

Manged to wire up correctly and plug in ok, currently formatting drive partitions so hopefully will show up on computer shortly. While going through a prog called Computer Maqnagment from Accessories section of xp prgram groups. Device is 171703 Mb but now i'm formatting says 167.68 GB does this mean I should really update my bios?

No, thats about right for a 180Gb drive. The reason you only get 167Gb is down to the way Windoze addresses the drive and also other data such as MFT (Master File Table) which is NTFS's equivulent to the FAT table. There are other factors but that goes beyond the need at the moment.

If you only had 137Gb (Or less) visable then I would go down the route of BIOS flashing, but as it's working, why try and fix it????

So yeah, if you are seeing 167Gb then you've got it installed correctly and your BIOS is up to date.

You can have fun filling it now!!!

Dave!

[Musicb0ffin]

Yeah, thats right. Still, 160gb is quite a challange to fill.

[sirpaul1]

Cheers guys, I was sort of thinking would it be worth tinkering over 4Gb. As for 160Gb being alot to fill, a couple of weekends, 3 days off work sick and the first time i've had broadband at home the drive will be full up by June.

Thankyou all very much for your help, i really couldn't have done that with out you.

Paul.

[Musicb0ffin]

Oh yes, the wonders of broadband. Might be worth investing in a dvd burner...

[sirpaul1]

Already got one of those and using it to full effect, bless DVDShrink.org. Thanks again tapped tour reputation aswell.