Second Hard Drive

[teeman2]

Hello All,
I have a 20GB ATA 66 5400rpm. Can I add a second Hard Drive of 7200 rpm ATA
100? My system is a Compaq Presario BW 251. Any help will be appreciated

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Hello All,
I have a 20GB ATA 66 5400rpm. Can I add a second Hard Drive of 7200 rpm ATA
100? My system is a Compaq Presario BW 251. Any help will be appreciated

Yes.

For best performance you should try and put the new drive on a different
ATA bus then the current drive. Also if your IDE controllers are limited
to ATA 66 then the new drive will run at 66 and not 100 but as a practical
matter you won't notice any difference.

 

[half_pint]

appreciated

Yes.

For best performance you should try and put the new drive on a different
ATA bus then the current drive. Also if your IDE controllers are limited
to ATA 66 then the new drive will run at 66 and not 100 but as a practical
matter you won't notice any difference.

By different bus do you mean different cable? I have both mine on the
same cable and I have some 'issues' (posted here).
It would be hard for me to put them on different cables due to the
location of my cdroms.

I will describe a problem I had with my cdrom and cdrw.
cdrom set as master, cdrw set to slave (on jumpers), however the cdrom
(master) was at the middle of the cable (which I think is where the slave
should be?), anyway I often found I got error "drive not ready, abort
retry?"
on the master cdrom but not on the slave.
So.... I switshed the jumpers so the cdrw was master and cdrom slave
which I believe is correct for their cable positions.
Anyway now it gives the error on the cdrw, which is now the master.
So on both occasions the master drive fails but the slave seems OK,
which seems a bit odd to me!
I should add that it does not always fail, I have better luck when I
boot with no disks in any drives, and some times both drives are ok.
any ideas?

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

By different bus do you mean different cable? I have both mine on the
same cable and I have some 'issues' (posted here).
It would be hard for me to put them on different cables due to the
location of my cdroms.

I will describe a problem I had with my cdrom and cdrw.
cdrom set as master, cdrw set to slave (on jumpers), however the cdrom
(master) was at the middle of the cable (which I think is where the slave
should be?), anyway I often found I got error "drive not ready, abort
retry?"
on the master cdrom but not on the slave.
So.... I switshed the jumpers so the cdrw was master and cdrom slave
which I believe is correct for their cable positions.
Anyway now it gives the error on the cdrw, which is now the master.
So on both occasions the master drive fails but the slave seems OK,
which seems a bit odd to me!
I should add that it does not always fail, I have better luck when I
boot with no disks in any drives, and some times both drives are ok.
any ideas?

You might have a bad cable. In general IDE cables are pretty marginal, as
a rule of thumb you are better off with only one device per cable. It's
also a good idea to use the shortest possible cables. I use Promise
controllers to get the additional ports that I need.

 

[half_pint]

You might have a bad cable. In general IDE cables are pretty marginal, as
a rule of thumb you are better off with only one device per cable. It's
also a good idea to use the shortest possible cables. I use Promise
controllers to get the additional ports that I need.

I see what you are saying but the drive which fails can be at any position
on the cable, it only seems to fail when it is set as master.
I mean if the drive at the middle failed I would expect the drive
at the end to fail too if it was the cable, but who knows.
I could swop my cable with the HD cable, but I would not like
my hardrive failing, that would be even worse but it would
prove a point.

 

[D2E]

Sounds like a bios problem,
what vintage is your compaq?
Some older BIOS will not handle
big hard drives.
If you need service advice on
a compag you can usally get
all the data you need if you go
to Compaq website
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/taskPa...res93700&pagetype=prodinfo&docparent=prodinfo

Here is a hard drive link
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/docume...aqpres93700&docName=bph05028&cat=solve#P6_574

good luck

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I see what you are saying but the drive which fails can be at any position
on the cable, it only seems to fail when it is set as master.
I mean if the drive at the middle failed I would expect the drive
at the end to fail too if it was the cable, but who knows.
I could swop my cable with the HD cable, but I would not like
my hardrive failing, that would be even worse but it would
prove a point.

Have you tried removing the second device from the cable? It sounds like
the two drives are interfering with each other.

 

[half_pint]

We it maybe Bios but sometimes the problem is there
sometimes its not, I though the lazer lens was dirty
but I changed my mind when I swapping M&S settings
chainged the 'faulty' drive' Maybe it is bios it is and
old machine.
They are CDROMS not hard drives mind.

 

[half_pint]

Have you tried removing the second device from the cable? It sounds like
the two drives are interfering with each other.

The problem is that leaves me with one drive and I want two drives!!!!
Thats why I bought it! Well I bought a cdrw but didn't want to
throw the cdrom away espicially as it has a skip track button
on the front which the other drive does not.

 

[half_pint]

Have you tried removing the second device from the cable? It sounds like
the two drives are interfering with each other.

Actually you appear to be dead right about the drives interferring with each
other
as i just put a disk in my master cdrw drive but I got the 'drive not ready
error'
(not sure of the wording) however I noticed there was an audio cd in the
other
drive. I ejected the audio cd and immediately the master cdrw sprang into
life (whirring) and I was able to read it.
I am unsure what the solution is, some thing to do in which the drives are
first
read perhaps or maybe putting a hardrive and a cdrom on each cable, although
things would be much worse if one of my hard drives stopped responding!!
Also the cabling would be worse doing this as the cdroms need to be in their
bays which are a bit of a stretch from the hard drives.
(Well actually one hard drive is unfixed!! as I have no spare hard drive
bay.
But I don't want both harddrives dangling in midair, although the unfixed
drive works perfectly ok).

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

The problem is that leaves me with one drive and I want two drives!!!!
Thats why I bought it! Well I bought a cdrw but didn't want to
throw the cdrom away espicially as it has a skip track button
on the front which the other drive does not.

I'd suggest that you spend $20 on a Promise Ultra 100 card, this will give
you two more ATA 100 ports and allow you to put all of your drives on
separate buses. Look on pricewatch under Promise Ultra 100, I think that
CompUSA charges something like $50 for one but there seem to be several
places that are offering them for ~$20.