Octopus Overlords

Hey all, I am going to get a new, larger HD for my computer and I am wondering how hard it is to slave the old one as a back up disk? Does any one have experience doing that sort of thing?

All you really have to do is change some pins around on the back of the HDs...and you may have to make sure the cable goes into the correct HD for each position(I can't remember)

Overall difficulty: Harder then adding RAM, easier then installing new heatsink.

You have to set the jumpers in the back, the hard drive itself should have a little guide written on it saying which jumper setting is for slave and which is for master.

Not sure if it matters which IDE cable you plug into the slave and which into the master. I'm sure other hardware gurus know the details.

It's pretty simple in theory although for some damn reason I have never been able to get all 4 IDE devices working properly in my computer. I'm always stuck at 3...

The cable position isn't relevant if none of the devices are set to 'CS', cable select.

Ok, follow-up guys:

I want my new, snazzy HD to be the main one and my older, slaved drive to be there for archiving files. When I install stuff, will it only go to the drive I specify, or will it be split between the both. Note that this will not be a RAID configuration.

You're going to have to install your OS and all your programs if you make the new one the "main" drive.

When you install a program, most of the time if you do the advanced config in the install dialogue it will allow you to select the drive and path for installation. Read the dialogue and don't just blindly hit "Next" and you should be fine. If you do an express install, it will probably install to whatever drive is designated C:\ or the system drive.

Ok good, so nothing will go onto my old, back-up drive unless I manually move it there? That's what I want. Just a place to keep digital photos and MP3s.

Yeah, that's how it should work.

Be sure to make sure your system disk is labeled C:\ and your backup/storage drive is something like I:\. It will make it easier since everything usually defaults to C:\.

If you want to make things even easier on yourself, only install the new hard drive, install Windows, then install the old one. Recognizing the second drive is function of the BIOS - nothing in Windows needs to be changed.

Then all you have to do is open up your old one and transfer any files you want right over to the new drive. Once you have everything you want on the new driver, reformat the old one (you should be able to do it from My Computer since there are no system files there), and move anything you want to store back over.

Blackhawk wrote:If you want to make things even easier on yourself, only install the new hard drive, install Windows, then install the old one. Recognizing the second drive is function of the BIOS - nothing in Windows needs to be changed.

Then all you have to do is open up your old one and transfer any files you want right over to the new drive. Once you have everything you want on the new driver, reformat the old one (you should be able to do it from My Computer since there are no system files there), and move anything you want to store back over.

What happens to the Windows install on the old drive? Is it not recognized?

leo8877 wrote:

Blackhawk wrote:If you want to make things even easier on yourself, only install the new hard drive, install Windows, then install the old one. Recognizing the second drive is function of the BIOS - nothing in Windows needs to be changed.

Then all you have to do is open up your old one and transfer any files you want right over to the new drive. Once you have everything you want on the new driver, reformat the old one (you should be able to do it from My Computer since there are no system files there), and move anything you want to store back over.

What happens to the Windows install on the old drive? Is it not recognized?

It's still there, but it won't boot since the install on the main drive will. You could leave it as-is, but it's a waste of space to have the OS install on there.

Basically adding a new drive is as simple as plugging it in. Adding a new system drive requires swapping and an OS install.