Instaling 2nd hard drive

HugoSP

The same PC as has the new graphics card may need more HD space.

I have a couple of spare HDs, one is from a laptop and the other is inside a disused desktop. The laptop hard drive would be preferable as this isn't in the loft and the old desktop may be used again in the future.

Issues:

The laptop HD is physically smaller than the Desktop HD is. It's not a lower capacity but is smaller in size. Will this give me an issue in fitting it to a desktop machine?

Last time I tried to install a 2nd HD to a PC, I had terrible problems and ended up getting the shop who sold it to me to do it instead, I don't want to go down this route, not least because I am 20 miles away from the shop and would like to save time and money by doing it myself.

The motherboard is an ASUS 4S533-VM. How do I go about configuring the PC to run 2 hard drives?

rjm2k1

The laptop drive will need an adaptor to work with a normal (assume IDE) cable. You could always pick up an external USB housing designed to take a laptop drive and put it in there, they cost around £20 IIRC and has the benefit of not having to take the pc apart and being removable/portable.

converse

External USB case, definitely the way to go, it's simple, it's portable, and saves faffing around with the wrong size in a desktop.

With HDs so cheap you could buy a pretty large new HD for the desktop 3.5" too.

BritBrat

The motherboard is an ASUS 4S533-VM. How do I go about configuring the PC to run 2 hard drives?

I think if it is SATA and the other drive is also, you just put it in with connector and power attached.

If the original in IDE you may need to make sure you set the jumper to slave if it is going to be a slave to either the installed drive or a CDrom drive.

Other than that, start computer, format drive and away you go.

HugoSP

BritBrat wrote: »

I think if it is SATA and the other drive is also, you just put it in with connector and power attached.

If the original in IDE you may need to make sure you set the jumper to slave if it is going to be a slave to either the installed drive or a CDrom drive.

Other than that, start computer, format drive and away you go.

How do you know which it is?

I think I want to go the no cost option, which involves taking the 2nd HD out of the other machine and using that. This will leave the machine with one HD but it's only a 500 odd Mhz, pentium 3/4 IIRC, so it wont make huge difference.

I may need some more memory for the machine as well, so I'd rather spend the money on that.

It's all about trying to get the machine to run the Sims 2.