Is it possible to have three harddisk and 1 CDRom all in one PC?

[cfman]

Hi all,

I have two 40GB harddisk originally installed, and now I am upgrading a
300GB one.

Is it possible that these three harddisk and one CDROM coexist in one PC? I
don't see much room inside my PC ...

I perhaps have to buy some hardware to make it work...

Could anybody please advise?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have two 40GB harddisk originally installed, and now I am
upgrading a 300GB one.

Is it possible that these three harddisk and one CDROM coexist in
one PC? I don't see much room inside my PC ...

I perhaps have to buy some hardware to make it work...

Depends on the case, type of drives, controller, etc.
I have many more than that in several of my home PCs.

BTW - what's with the unbelievable cross-posting?

 

[cfman]

Depends on the case, type of drives, controller, etc.
I have many more than that in several of my home PCs.

BTW - what's with the unbelievable cross-posting?

Sorry! I was really desperate...

My PC is Dell Poweredge 400SC. The harddisks are regular 40G, 40G, 300G
harddisks.

What upgrade shall I put in to make 3 harddisks + 1 CDRom work?

Thanks

 

[Terry]

On 4/2/2007 4:21 PM On a whim, cfman pounded out on the keyboard

Hi all,

I have two 40GB harddisk originally installed, and now I am upgrading a
300GB one.

Is it possible that these three harddisk and one CDROM coexist in one PC? I
don't see much room inside my PC ...

I perhaps have to buy some hardware to make it work...

Could anybody please advise?

Thanks a lot!

An IDE connector can support 2 drives. Most MB's have 2 connectors,
supporting 4 drives. If you also have SATA connectors you can also add
one SATA drive per connector (more complicated using both IDE & SATA if
you've never done it before). Now if your power supply is large enough
and you have room to mount another drive, you'll be fine.

I have 3 IDE hard drives & 1 DVD drive and 1 SATA drive.
--
Terry

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[Shenan Stanley]

I have two 40GB harddisk originally installed, and now I am
upgrading a 300GB one.

Is it possible that these three harddisk and one CDROM coexist in
one PC? I don't see much room inside my PC ...

I perhaps have to buy some hardware to make it work...

Depends on the case, type of drives, controller, etc.
I have many more than that in several of my home PCs.

BTW - what's with the unbelievable cross-posting?

Sorry! I was really desperate...

My PC is Dell Poweredge 400SC. The harddisks are regular 40G, 40G,
300G harddisks.

What upgrade shall I put in to make 3 harddisks + 1 CDRom work?

Assuming all of these drives - CD included - are IDE drives...
You likely have two IDE channels.
You can have two drives per IDE channel/IDE cable.

You wanted two 40GB, one 300GB and one CD/DVD drive?

Then you should have all the hardware you need - assuming you do not wish to
RAID these in any strange way. Simply set them to cable select or - for
each single drive on a single ribbon cable - one to master and one to slave.

Now - this of course - assumes you have the physical drive bays in which to
put them in - and if you don't - well - it is a proprietary case and the
chances of moving them to a non-proprietary case with room are slim.

 

[cfman]

Assuming all of these drives - CD included - are IDE drives...
You likely have two IDE channels.
You can have two drives per IDE channel/IDE cable.

You wanted two 40GB, one 300GB and one CD/DVD drive?

Then you should have all the hardware you need - assuming you do not wish
to RAID these in any strange way. Simply set them to cable select or -
for each single drive on a single ribbon cable - one to master and one to
slave.

Now - this of course - assumes you have the physical drive bays in which
to put them in - and if you don't - well - it is a proprietary case and
the chances of moving them to a non-proprietary case with room are slim.

So your conclusion is that I have no hope to retain that 40GB, and I have to
throw away one of the 40GB harddisk?

Or I have to throw away 2 40GB harddisk and let the 300GB and CDRom have the
room?

Thanks

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi all,

I have two 40GB harddisk originally installed, and now I am upgrading
a 300GB one.

Is it possible that these three harddisk and one CDROM coexist in one
PC?

Certainly. I know one person with seven hard drives in a single box.

I don't see much room inside my PC ...

*You* may not have room inside your box for more drives than you have, but
boxes vary substantially. How much room you have depends entirely on your
particular box.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

On 4/2/2007 4:21 PM On a whim, cfman pounded out on the keyboard


An IDE connector can support 2 drives. Most MB's have 2 connectors,
supporting 4 drives.

Over and above those four IDE drives that are typically supported on the
motherboard, one can buy and install additional IDE PCI cards that permit
supporting more drives.

 

[JCO]

You can have up to 4-devices (hardrives, CDROMS) on one computer. If you
already have one CDROM, then you have room for 3-Harddrives. Your
motherboard has 2-controllers on it. Each controller can handle 2-devices
as long as the proper cable is used.

 

[peter]

Where the hell did you read that in there????????//
You have 2 EIDE channels
each channel can support 2 EIDE drives........You have 2 channels or you
would not be operating with 2x40G HD and a CDROM
You now have 2x40gig HD and one CDROM...........ergo you have room for one
more drive only!!
The cables that come off the EIDE channel have 2 connection ..one on the
end...where you plug in a Drive configured as Master and one in the middle
where you plug in a drive configured as Slave. The jumpers on the back of a
HD/CD/DVD are movable as per the manual to switch the drive to/from
master/slave.
If you CD drive is at the end connection....hook the new drive up to the
middle connection and change the jumpers to "slave"

is that plain and to the point enough for you???????????/
peter

 

[ks]

get an external usb harddisk will solve the issue.you can have as many
harddisk as u want.

 

[Og]

Assuming one is willing to install an appropriate number of drive
controllers...
How many physical drives a given PC will support depends upon 'two' factors:
1.) Physical space within the case
2.) Power Supply Limitations
I have one PC with (1) floopy, (1) CD-ROM, (2) CD-RW, (2) DVD-RW, (2) RAID
arrays of (4) hard disks each = 16 drives in a "Twelve Bay" case.
Steve

 

[DL]

A word of warning;
If your case is tight on space you *may* have cooling problems.
When I installed another hd in my Dell many years ago the hd overheated and
failed, even though the hd was installed in a spare hd 'slot'

 

[Noncompliant]

Hi all,

I have two 40GB harddisk originally installed, and now I am upgrading a
300GB one.

Is it possible that these three harddisk and one CDROM coexist in one PC?
I don't see much room inside my PC ...

I perhaps have to buy some hardware to make it work...

Could anybody please advise?

Thanks a lot!

There's two primary things involved with mounting ide device internally in a
PC.

First is the hardware requirement. You need a place to mount the hard drive
within the case. The location has to be close enough to the ide controller
port, and if slaved, close enough to the other ide device to allow
connection of the ide ribbon cable to both ide devices. You need an
available power molex connector to power the ide unit. The power supply has
to be able to handle the additional power drain as well. The added hard
drive has to be jumpered correctly in relation to any counterpart ide device
on the same ide ribbon cable.

The second part is software. The onboard bios has to support the capacity
of the hard drive to fully utilize it. The hard drive has to be partitioned
and formatted to allow access to read/write files to that hard drive. The
partition type has to be suitable for the operating system.

If there is not an available location for an added hard drive internally,
there is another option. In the case of a slaving with a cdrom, an open
5.25" bay with a 3.5" adapter for holding the hard drive is probably the way
to go to maintain the inside the PC philosophy. The slave will take the
middle connector of the ide ribbon cable. You may need to move the cdrom
down or up one 5.25" bay. Typically, the hard drive will take master, and
the cdrom slave.

There are external solutions, but that was not the question.