In: Categories » Computers and technology » Windows XP » Adding a Second Internal Hard Drive to your system
For most current PC owners, the easiest method of adding more hard drive space is to add a second hard drive to your system. I cite three very good reasons for this:
- No backup is required. Of course, you should be backing up your current hard drive anyway. (If not, shut this article immediately and back up your drive!) Adding a second drive eliminates the setup that you’d have to perform if you upgraded your current drive because you won’t have to restore the current contents of your old drive to the new drive.
- Most PCs have at least one open drive bay. Unless your computer is already stuffed to the gills, you should have enough room to add a second hard drive. If it is stuffed to the gills, you’ll either have to upgrade the current drive or add an external FireWire or USB 2.0 drive.
- It’s like . . . well . . . more for less. Rather than replace your existing 30GB drive with a 60GB drive and end up with only 30GB more room I always find it more attractive to leave the original drive as is and add that second drive, resulting in the full 60GB that you paid for. (Remember: You will eventually use that space. Trust me.) Are you girded and ready for battle? Then follow this procedure to add a second internal hard drive to your current system:
1. Cover your work surface with several sheets of newspaper.
2. Unplug your PC and place it on top of the newspaper.
3. Remove the case screws and slide the case off, putting the screws aside in a bowl or cup. If you’re unsure how to remove your PC’s case, check the manual that accompanied your computer.
4. Touch the metal chassis of the computer to dissipate any static electricity.
5. Verify the jumper settings on the back of your original drive. If necessary, change the existing drive to multiple drives, master unit (or just master) by moving the jumper to the indicated pins. If you haven’t encountered jumpers yet, they’re the tiny plastic and metal shunts that you use to configure hard drives and CD/DVD drives. Most hard drive manufacturers now print the jumper settings on the top of a hard drive. If the settings aren’t printed on the drive, you can refer to the drive’s manual or visit the manufacturer’s Web site and look up the settings there. If all this seems a little exotic, the terms are really not risqué; master means primary (and if you have at least one drive, there must be a master device), and slave means secondary. Other than that, the devices are treated the same way by your PC.
6. Set the jumpers on the back of the new drive for multiple drives, slave unit (often listed as just slave unit).
7. If your new drive needs a drive cage to fit into the desired bay, use the screws supplied by the drive manufacturer to attach the cage rails onto both sides of your drive. For more on drive cage kits, see the earlier section, “Size definitely does matter.”
8. Slide the drive into the selected bay from the front of the case, making sure that the end with the connectors goes in first and that the exposed circuitry of the drive is on the bottom.
9. Slide the hard drive back and forth in the drive bay until the screw holes in the side of the bay are aligned with the screw holes on the side of the drive (or the drive cage rails).
10.Tighten the drive down to the side of the bay with the screws that came with the drive (or your cage kit)
11.Choose an unused power connector and plug it in, making sure that the connector is firmly seated
12.Plug the other connector from the hard drive cable into the back of the drive and make sure that the cable is firmly seated. Note that both hard drives will use the same cable, so you might need to unplug the original drive from the cable and switch connectors. Don’t worry: It doesn’t matter which connector goes to which drive as long as the jumpers are correctly set. Check for a blocked hole in the cable connector, which should align with a missing pin on the drive’s connector. This alignment trick, called keying, helps ensure that you’re installing the cable right-side up. However, don’t panic if the cable isn’t keyed: Remember that the wire with the red or black marking on the cable is always Wire 1 and that it should align with Pin 1 on the drive’s connector
13.Replace the cover on your PC and tighten its screws.
14.Plug your PC back in and turn it on.
15.Run the drive formatting utility that accompanied your new drive to prepare it for use.
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