Installing 3rd hard drive as boot drive

[bently]

I have 2 WD hard drives installed, each partitioned for 2 drives. 80
gig master, 40 gig slave.
2 Optical drives, one slave to other.

I am thinking of installing a 3rd hard drive, a FUJITSU MPD3084AT as the
C drive to have this as BOOT disk and put most everything else on the
other drives.


1. Is this a practical idea?
2. If a good idea, how would I connect to the MB? The 3 1/2 floppy has
a ribbon I could connect to FUJITSU hard drive,
WILL this work? (I see three slots for drives on the MB.) One for
original 2 hard drives and one for 2 optical drives and one for 3 1/2
inch floppy.
3. Would I set the FIJITSU as Master, if so what about the other 2
currently on same ribbon?



Below are specs for computer.
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2
CPU Type AMD Athlon, 1333 MHz (10 x 133)
Motherboard Name MSI KM2M Combo (MS-6738) (3 PCI, 1 AGP, 2 SDR
DIMM, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, Video)
System Memory 1024 MB (DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award (04/18/03)

IDE Controller VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive taking one slot on the MB
Drive
Drive #1 - WDC WD800JB-00JJC0 (74 GB) NTFS C drive
Drive #1 - WDC WD800JB-00JJC0 (74 GB) NTFS E drive
Drive
Drive #2 - WDC WD400BB-00DEA0 (37 GB) FAT32 D drive
Drive #2 - WDC WD400BB-00DEA0 (37 GB) FAT32 F drive

Optical Drive SONY DVD RW DRU-810A (master)
Optical Drive NEC DVD+RW ND-1000A (slave)


Thanks

bently

 

[Yves Leclerc]

I have 2 WD hard drives installed, each partitioned for 2 drives. 80
gig master, 40 gig slave.
2 Optical drives, one slave to other.

I am thinking of installing a 3rd hard drive, a FUJITSU MPD3084AT as the
C drive to have this as BOOT disk and put most everything else on the
other drives.


1. Is this a practical idea?
2. If a good idea, how would I connect to the MB? The 3 1/2 floppy has
a ribbon I could connect to FUJITSU hard drive,
WILL this work? (I see three slots for drives on the MB.) One for
original 2 hard drives and one for 2 optical drives and one for 3 1/2
inch floppy.
3. Would I set the FIJITSU as Master, if so what about the other 2
currently on same ribbon?



Below are specs for computer.
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2
CPU Type AMD Athlon, 1333 MHz (10 x 133)
Motherboard Name MSI KM2M Combo (MS-6738) (3 PCI, 1 AGP, 2 SDR
DIMM, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, Video)
System Memory 1024 MB (DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award (04/18/03)

IDE Controller VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive taking one slot on the MB
Drive
Drive #1 - WDC WD800JB-00JJC0 (74 GB) NTFS C drive
Drive #1 - WDC WD800JB-00JJC0 (74 GB) NTFS E drive
Drive
Drive #2 - WDC WD400BB-00DEA0 (37 GB) FAT32 D drive
Drive #2 - WDC WD400BB-00DEA0 (37 GB) FAT32 F drive

Optical Drive SONY DVD RW DRU-810A (master)
Optical Drive NEC DVD+RW ND-1000A (slave)


Thanks

bently

You can only have 2 hard drives per ribbon cable and the floppy ribbon can not
be used for hard drives. If you want to add hard drives and all the IDE
(ATA) ribbon cables already have drives connected, you will need to buy a PCI
IDE(ATA) adapter. After, you can add 4 more drives.

Please not that if you are adding hard drives to an already maxed out PC (2
HDDs and 2 Opticals drives,) you may need to replace the power supply unit in
order to provide more power to to internal devices.

 

[Jerry]

Rather than buying a PCI card for more IDE drives you could buy a PCI card
that supports SATA drives as they will soon make IDEs obsolete.

I have 2 WD hard drives installed, each partitioned for 2 drives. 80
gig master, 40 gig slave.
2 Optical drives, one slave to other.

I am thinking of installing a 3rd hard drive, a FUJITSU MPD3084AT as the
C drive to have this as BOOT disk and put most everything else on the
other drives.


1. Is this a practical idea?
2. If a good idea, how would I connect to the MB? The 3 1/2 floppy has
a ribbon I could connect to FUJITSU hard drive,
WILL this work? (I see three slots for drives on the MB.) One for
original 2 hard drives and one for 2 optical drives and one for 3 1/2
inch floppy.
3. Would I set the FIJITSU as Master, if so what about the other 2
currently on same ribbon?



Below are specs for computer.
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2
CPU Type AMD Athlon, 1333 MHz (10 x 133)
Motherboard Name MSI KM2M Combo (MS-6738) (3 PCI, 1 AGP, 2 SDR
DIMM, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, Video)
System Memory 1024 MB (DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award (04/18/03)

IDE Controller VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive taking one slot on the MB
Drive
Drive #1 - WDC WD800JB-00JJC0 (74 GB) NTFS C drive
Drive #1 - WDC WD800JB-00JJC0 (74 GB) NTFS E drive
Drive
Drive #2 - WDC WD400BB-00DEA0 (37 GB) FAT32 D drive
Drive #2 - WDC WD400BB-00DEA0 (37 GB) FAT32 F drive

Optical Drive SONY DVD RW DRU-810A (master)
Optical Drive NEC DVD+RW ND-1000A (slave)


Thanks

bently

You can only have 2 hard drives per ribbon cable and the floppy ribbon can
not
be used for hard drives. If you want to add hard drives and all the IDE
(ATA) ribbon cables already have drives connected, you will need to buy a
PCI
IDE(ATA) adapter. After, you can add 4 more drives.

Please not that if you are adding hard drives to an already maxed out PC (2
HDDs and 2 Opticals drives,) you may need to replace the power supply unit
in
order to provide more power to to internal devices.

 

[bently]

Thanks Jerry and Yves,

I replied to this yesterday, but do not see it posted here, so am
posting reply again.

Appreciate the info... sounds like a lot more than I want to do to get
the 3rd HD.

So I am going to leave things like they are now.

Thanks again,

bently