Will XP support this many Hard Drives?

[Stephen]

Hi

This might be off topic.

I have got XP Home.

My motherboard has 2 IDE outputs.

I want add 2 more drives, making a total of 5 drives.

Will XP support this.

This is my set up now;

1st IDE ATA = Main Drive (C) - no slave drive.
2nd IDE ATA = DVD RW then a CD RW as a slave.

What I want to add is another 2 hard drives.

I realise I can add one drive to the master but
where could I place the fifth drive?

Is it possible to add another slave to an existing slave?

Thanks in advance - Stephen

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Stephen

One easy way would be to remove the CD-RW as you already have a DVD-RW..

 

[Guest]

It's not XP but the hardware that would prevent this. By default only 4 IDE
devices are supported--two masters and 2 slaves. Unless you add an IDE
add-on card, use a different type of device (such as SATA or SCSI) or use an
external USB or serial drive (and the motherboard supports it), you are
scuppered. This is a limitation of the technology.

 

[Robert Moir]

Hi

This might be off topic.

I have got XP Home.

My motherboard has 2 IDE outputs.

I want add 2 more drives, making a total of 5 drives.

Will XP support this.

This is my set up now;

1st IDE ATA = Main Drive (C) - no slave drive.
2nd IDE ATA = DVD RW then a CD RW as a slave.

What I want to add is another 2 hard drives.

I realise I can add one drive to the master but
where could I place the fifth drive?

Is it possible to add another slave to an existing slave?

Will XP support more drives? Sure.

Will your hardware? Not as described above; IDE controllers support 2
devices per channel. Time to look at a SATA add-in card perhaps?

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

If you have an available PCI slot you can add a controller card. You can
then add multiple additional drives to it. There isn't a limitation per se
within Windows XP, but there are limitations on how you can expand your
hardware.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org