Using three hard drive

[Guest]

Hello

At present I am running Win XP Pro, with 2 hard drives (40GB and 80GB); a CDRW drive and a CD ROM drive. My question is: Is it possible to install a third hard drive (10GB)?

My motherboard has two of the controlers (the thingamagig that the hard drive connect to), or is it three, cause I also have a floppy drive

Please help

Thanks

 

[Bob Willard]

Hello,

At present I am running Win XP Pro, with 2 hard drives (40GB and 80GB); a CDRW drive and a CD ROM drive. My question is: Is it possible to install a third hard drive (10GB)?

My motherboard has two of the controlers (the thingamagig that the hard drive connect to), or is it three, cause I also have a floppy drive.

Please help.

Thanks

HDs typically connect via IDE (a/k/a PATA) buses; FDs do not. So the
presence of FD(s) don't affect the HD limits.

Most MBs have a single IDE controller chip which drives two IDE buses,
and each IDE bus can connect to two IDE devices. So, your PC is full.

To add another HD, you must add a plug-in controller card: PCI-PATA,
PCI-SATA, or PCI-SCSI. And, to add to your choices, some such cards
also support RAID. SCSI is too expensive for most SOHO PCs, and RAID
is overkill for SOHO PCs (except hard-core gamers and CAD users and
the like). PCI-PATA is probably cheapest and is my first choice, but
PCI-SATA lets you connect to SATA HDs which may be a better choice for
your next PC.

And, and PCI-PATA or PCI-SATA controller will present its HDs to the OS
as SCSI HDs; don't worry about that.

 

[Guest]

Hi

You need a PCI to IDE adapter for the connection of the third Hdd

Pete


----- Moyah8 wrote: ----

Hello

At present I am running Win XP Pro, with 2 hard drives (40GB and 80GB); a CDRW drive and a CD ROM drive. My question is: Is it possible to install a third hard drive (10GB)?

My motherboard has two of the controlers (the thingamagig that the hard drive connect to), or is it three, cause I also have a floppy drive

Please help

Thanks

 

[Guest]

Thanks for that Bob. It was all verrry technical, but I guess helpfull. Could you please simplyfi it has to what component I actually need?

 

[Guest]

You need to buy a PCI card (to install in your PC) to act
as an adapter enabling you to use an IDE (PATA) cable to
connect your third hard drive to the card.

-----Original Message-----
Thanks for that Bob. It was all verrry technical, but I

guess helpfull. Could you please simplyfi it has to what
component I actually need?

 

[Mike]

Go ot a PC store and ask them.. they will show you what you need..

Thanks.

What is the name of this cable, and where is it connected? Is it

connected as a replacement for the current cable, or is it to go on somwhere
else?