Fitting a new hardrive

dbs

My friend upgraded my pc two years ago got a new motherboard and 256mb of memory but he forgot to upgrade the hard drive.
I want to install myself a new hard drive with 120gb 7200 maxtor 8mb cache then install Windows XP is this an easy job?Processor is AMD Athlon1.0ghz dont know what the motherboard is.

LincsLad_3

Yes, it's easy enough. There are plenty of guides out there on how to do it.

You may want to keep your current hard drive as a 'slave' drive to get at the data that is already on it, and/or for additional storage space.

Your motherboard may have a second IDE channel which may already be in use for your CD drive, or the CD may share one IDE channel with your existing hard drive. If unused, the connection for the second IDE channel on the motherboard will be near to where the existing ribbon cable is attached. (Don't get confused with a similar-looking cable connected to the floppy drive - that is quite separate).

One thing to be aware of is the need to make one device on each IDE channel the 'master' and the other the 'slave'. This is done by small jumper connections on the back of the drive - ther eis normally a diagram on the unit showing which pins need to be jumpered for which connection.

Assuming you have the space inside your PC's case and 2 x IDE channels, I would connect as follows:

IDE 1
Master - new 120 GB hard drive (will be Drive C:\ )
Slave - existing hard drive (will be Drive \ )

IDE 2
Master - CD-ROM Drive (Drive E:\ )

Once the hardware is connected up (don't worry about Drive letters - Windows will take care of that later), make sure that your BIOS is set to allow you to boot from a CD-Drive, insert the WinXP CD, and away you go.

It probably sounds a lot more complicated than it really is, take a look on the web for some guidance notes before you start, ad it will go fine.

ribenagirl

Just to add to what Lincslad has said, some of the newer HDD's are serial ATA connecting rather than IDE connecting, I think ???

And I think there is a difference (someone please correct me if that's wrong - I'm doing my own self-build so it would be helpful!) so just to warn you to make sure you've got the right type for your mobo.

Toxteth_OGrady

someone please correct me if that's wrong

No you're not. SATA has different power and data connectors to PATA.  You need a SATA mobo (or pci card).


8)

TOG

dbs

The 120gb hard drive I bought is a ATA/133 sure my existing hard drive is ide connection so I will need a pci card.(whatever that is)
Also on the new HD it states no jumper=DS slave can I still keep my old HD as a slave.

Toxteth_OGrady

Be surprised if a 2 yr old mobo doesn't support ATA133. Most are ATA 133/100/66 which are all P-ATA IDE.

SATA speed is 150 but you ain't got that so why do you think you need a pci card?

Just try it.

8)

TOG

dbs

Thanks for the info guys

culpepper

For the jumper settings,your new harddrive will have a little diagram to show you how to set the jumpers.So will your old one.
If you dont have a jumper pin at all(they are easy to lose),you can buy the pins in Maplins.
If you cant see the drives in your BIOS there is probably an AUTO detect setting.You usually change the settings with the pageup/pagedn keys.
Hope that is useful to someone.

dbs

Installed the new hardrive with no problems thanks for all the information.

The inside of my computer was covered in dust I used low pressure compressed air to get rid of it, think I will clean it every year.