3 hard drives help--dumb q's
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Posted on Oct 08, 2005 04:31 pm
fortymile
Member Since: Jan 18, 2003
i inherited a hard drive.
my music computer currently has a main drive and a music drive. i could use the extra space a third drive would provide. so i would like to add that one as well. however, i do not think that the ribbons i saw in there had space enough for three drives. sont they usually just have two plugs? and i do not believe there is space to mount a third drive in the computer (though i might be wrong about that and will check soon).
anyone ever add a third drive? what adjustments did you make as far as the ribbons/plugs go (what are those cables called again?)
and is it ok to somehow just mount the third drive outside, even though it's designed to be mounted inside? i currently have a hole in the back of this computer--i removed my old soundcard recently, which had just been taking up space, and never put the metal plate back in (is this a dust danger?) anyway, could i just run a long drive cable out that hole and just have this third drive sitting on a table or something or is that foolhardy?
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Oct 08, 2005 04:39 pm If it's a standard IDE type hard drive, each IDE bus (most computers have two IDE busses, one "primary" and one "secondary") can only have two drives, a "master" and a "slave" (and guess what, last year some people got pissed and tried to sue the industry to change the master/slave term).
So, a typical PC with two IDE busses can have 4 drives in it.
You can also buy add on card that provide more busses...or, go SCSI...
Oct 08, 2005 09:04 pm lemme make sure i know what youre sayin:
the bus is the thing on the motherboard itself, right? a slot where you plug in the ribbons? youre saying there should be two of these slots on the board, and each one can take a ribbon that has two plugs (for two drives, master and slave) on it?
zekthedeadcowEat Spam before it eats YOU!!!Member
Since: May 11, 2002
Oct 08, 2005 10:10 pm yep
Oct 08, 2005 10:20 pm k, thanx. good
jmailjimmie neutronMember
Since: Feb 14, 2005
Oct 09, 2005 08:06 am 'Nother option: *If* you've got USB 2, or decent firewire, and an external USB or firewire drive. Main problem with them, since they're rather popular, is that they're 1/2 again as expensive as a regular IDE drive of the same size...
btw, Don't "mix" drive types on the IDE "bus". If there is an optical drive on a channel, a hard drive added there won't work at full speed. Each IDE channel is limited to it's slowest common-denominator, and an optical drive is slow (comparitively speaking), therefore, to be able to talk to both devices, the computer slows that channel down...
Oct 09, 2005 03:10 pm this is just an old internal hard drive. id love to get an external, but cant right now.
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Oct 10, 2005 12:09 pm so you know, CD drives are often IDE devices, so if you have 2 HD, and 1 CD drive, and 1 CD burner, then you're already full, and will have to get creative.
Oct 10, 2005 02:41 pm ah, no, i did not know that. i currently have 2 hard drives and a cd burner and thats it. so i guess thats one slot left. though it might be confusing to figure out where it is. hopefully when i crack this thing open, ill see a nice empty plug attached to the CD burner. right? if not, im not going to know what to do. the other ribbon is occupied.
Oct 10, 2005 02:45 pm depnds how they are set up, the empty plug could be on either...
it could be:
primary:
master: hard drive
slave: hard drive
secondary:
master: burner
slave: empty
or it could be
primary:
master: hard drive
slave: burner
secondary:
master: hard drive
slave: empty
or it could be
primary:
master: hard drive
slave: empty
secondary:
master: hard drive
slave: burner
or any such configuration....
jmailjimmie neutronMember
Since: Feb 14, 2005
Oct 11, 2005 09:23 pm There are external cases available for internal drives, that can turn them into a firewire/USB drive ($75-100US)...
Oct 11, 2005 09:33 pm I just got a USB external case for a typical internal IDE drive, it cost me $30 I believe ($40 at most)...at CompUSA.
Oct 11, 2005 10:32 pm ooh i want one of those! you know the name/brand?
Oct 12, 2005 06:46 am Yeah, it was a CompUSA brand :-)
tonyd1970The fat one always watches us.Member
Since: Nov 08, 2002
Oct 12, 2005 09:21 am Another thing to consider is speed. When you throw a slave drive on your primary bus things can slow down. So, try to run your hard drives on seperate busses. (this just happened to me)
i got new 100 gig internal and threw it in on my primary bus as a slave. on my sec bus i had an old cd player and my dvdr/cdrw drive. things slowed to a crawl. i couldnt even record or play mp3's without it dropping out. so i took out the old cd player, made the new 100 gig the master on the secondary and the dvd/cdrw the slave on the secondary. everything works great again.
just keep it in mind....
Oct 12, 2005 09:26 am That's really weird. I mean, having two devices on the same bus does slow things down, technically, but it's generally at an un-noticable rate. I strongly suspect there are other issues at play in that situation.
That said, I generally try to keep my hard drives as "masters" and CD/DVD players as "slaves"...just a habit, never had an experience like that tho!
Oct 12, 2005 02:32 pm ok well a lot of this i dont understand. i dont know what a primary or secondary bus is. i also thought that something always had to be the master and everything else had to be slaves. db's last post there seems to hint that you dont need to play that game. db you have multiple drives all set to master?
this is too complicated. if i get this USB box, i can just snap this drive in there and plug it into the front of my computer, eh? thats all ill need, as this will just be for storage.
Oct 12, 2005 02:34 pm I have two hard drives, both masters on primary and secondary busses, then one CD/DVD burner, set to slave on the primary bus...right now secondary master is empty.
With the USB device, just plug it into a USB port and let Windows find and install it for use...it should do it all by itself.
Oct 12, 2005 02:39 pm you mean your secondary *slave* is currently empty, right?
i think i get it. each bus has a primary and slave position. it sounds like you must specify roles like that for each bus. now if i only knew the definition of 'bus.'
im going the USB route. but whats a bus?
Oct 12, 2005 02:43 pm Just like on a mixer, a "bus" a signal path, (most) motherboards have two IDE signal paths, each one can have two devices on them a "master" and a "slave". Each device one IDE busses have little settings on the back of them to set them as master or slave (and the also have "cable select"...ignore that, I won't even go there...
Oct 12, 2005 03:16 pm gotcha. 'signal path' makes it make sense.
and yeah, i've set the little jumpers before. and if 'cable select' is something you can ignore, well, i like to ignore stuff when possible.
