[djkcp]

ive got 2 hard drives on my broken computer......one of them has only music and stuff on it...would i be able to take it out and put it into another computer or is there more to it then that?

[Rik]

That will all depend on wether the hard drive in question is an ata or a sata hard drive and wether your new computer will support both types. Ata is the older technology and has a large 40 way, 80 wire data connector and sata which is the newer technology has a 4 wire data connector.

Let me know if you need any more information. :)

[Xeon]

Both Hard Drives can be put into antother computer alsong as they use the same connections in both computers (IDE or S-ATA).
One of the Hard Drives will have an operating system on it, if you put this one into another computer you will have to reactivate windows for it to work with the new hardware.

The other hard disk drive, if this is the one with everything else on such as music etc should not have windows on it and should be your secondary or slave Hard Drive.

Overall You can put both Hard drives into another computer, but the one with windows on it will have to be reactivated with microsoft to work with your new hardware, or you will have to put another version of windows on it.

That may not be very clear, but hope it helps.

[philthomas]

As Xeon says, both will work ok, providing your new PC has the relevant connections .... if it doesn't, you can use a USB External Enclosure ... these come in both PATA (IDE) and SATA flavours.

If you try to boot to your old drive, which contains Windows, it will probably fail to boot, as all the drivers etc. will relate to your old PC. If you dont want to boot from it, just format it and use it as a Data drive either internal or USB external.

[Bubba]

So following this up, as I have a similar situation..... (just realized I have only 13 GB's left on my raptor) I can take a hard drive out of my old computer (that I never used) and put it in my new computer if the connections are the same? Will I need to use raid and will it matter that one runs at 10,000 rpm's and the older one at 7000? Or should I just go buy another 10,000RPM HD?

[Rik]

The 7,000 rpm drive will just be slower than the 10,000 one.

You do not have to use raid. The 10,000 rpm drive is your boot drive i expect. In order to raid it you would have to use a specialised system preparation tool as windows does not like being installed onto a raid array (this is true of ata as i have tried it out, but it may well be different for sata).

[philthomas]

Yep ... as long as you have the relevant connections spare .... you wont need to set up Raid and it won't matter what RPM it is. If it;s an IDE Drive, you may need to reset the jumper to slave ... it depends on what you have in your new box.

[Bubba]

Well, installing hard drives looks to be in chapter one of my new book (with the important parts I'll need on page 1239 in chapter 28 lol) so I will read it through twice and give it a go this weekend between the college football games Saturday and the Fontana race Sunday.

Before I go start studying it let me ask one more question: Since I want the new HD to be an extension of the existing one, I'll want to slave it correct?

[philthomas]

It depends what you have now ... i.e. if you have an IDE drive as your OS Boot drive, set as the Master on the Primary Channel and you add your drive to the same channel, then it will need to be jumpered to Slave.
If you have 2 x IDE Controllers on the mobo .. i.e. Primary and Secondary Channels, you can add it as either Master or Slave to the Secondary Channel.
The main consideration is .... you can only have one Master and One Slave on each Channel, so if you have a drive already on the channel you intend adding to, you need to note the jumper setting and use the opposite for the drive you are adding.

SATA drives do not use jumpers or have Master & Slave settings, so are different to IDE.

Hope that makes sense

[Bubba]

Yep. Clear as mud (j/k, I understand). I DO have SATA drives though, well at least the Raptor is, I've never looked at the one in the Dell I'm planning on using. If it's not a SATA, I'll go buy one.

Will the SATA drive work in tandem, or do I have to use them as separate drives?

[philthomas]

It's hard to specific as I dont have enough info on your system or the drives you have or will be adding.

Having said that though, if your mobo has a spare IDE Controller or SATA, you can add either type. They should play nicely with each other.
If your OS boot drive is SATA, the Master Slave considerations do not apply
The added drive will be a seperate drive and will be allocated a new drive letter.

Hope that answers a few bits.

[Rik]

It will work as a separate drive.

You may be able to raid it but i suspect it would mean a windows reinstall at the very least.

If the Dell is an older model then it is most likely to be an ata drive and will be set to either master or cable select via the jumper settings.

An ata should work alongside your sata perfectly well if connected to your mobo (motherboard) or an ata pci raid card.

If you fit it onto a data cable that already has a device on it (cd or dvd drive) then you need to see if the other device is set to master or cable select and set your hard drive to slave or cable select respectively.

Your drive letters may get messed up a little but altering them manually is not to difficult with "manage".

If you need any help then let me know and i will talk you through it all. :)

[Bubba]

Phil: I'm running an Nvidia 790i ultra Mobo, an intel q9450 processor, 8 GB's of ddr3 Patriot Ram, a Western Digital 150GB 10,000 rpm Raptor HD, and 2 Nvidia 9800 GX2's in SLI (quad).

Rik: Thank you (and everyone else). I' certainly WILL let you know when I add the other hard drive. I'm reading my A++ book and it's a slow read as I'm trying to absorb it all. I know beyond any shadow of a doub thatt when I add the new drive I will need some advise and I'm not too shy to ask.

Just touching base as it's been a little while since I asked my original question and I have done nothing since then.

[philthomas]

OK ... the existing drive is SATA .... do you know if the drive you are adding, from the old PC is SATA or IDE ?

[Bubba]

Actually I've talked myself into another WD Raptor (10,000 rpm again). I decided I'm a fine fellow and deserve it lol. I'm headed out in a few minutes to get it and a couple of new games.