How do you have two HDD's?

~~BMG_Cya=-~~ · May 16, 2003, 11:44 PM

I have a 40GB Maxtor HDD and a 60GB Seagate Barracuda HDD.
I am currently using the Maxtor, but would also like to use
the Seagate as a secondary or maybe primary HD. Obviously,
I have never done this before, that's why I'm asking.

My PC specs are as follows:

Athlon XP 1900+

Sapphire Radeon 9700 Pro

512 MB Crucial DDR SDRAM

Gigabyte GA-7DXR MOBO

350-watt Power supply

WinXP Home DX9.0a

Questions:

1.) I have plenty of slots to put the additional HDD in, but
is the 350-watt Power supply enough to power these two HD's and still
supply my R9700 Pro with enough juice, along with 5 case fans?

2.) Do I need any kind of special software to both set-up the two
HDD's, and also to switch between them?

3.) If the answer to question 2 is yes, what are some good programs
for this type of stuff?

4.) Of the 5 case fans I have, the Hard-drive bay has only
one fan to cool the bay. Is this enough to keep things nice and crispy
cool?
(I also have a 1.5 ton air-conditioner siting on the floor just to cool my 'pooter.
The drip/catch pan gets a weekly cleaning else...stinks like sh*t)

5.) Finally, if one HD is running, and I'm not using the other one,
will it be running all the time, or can I switch it off if I want?
(Which would kind of answer my Power Supply question...)

I really need a pretty in-depth how-to on this, as I don't want to
screw things up.

Oh yeah, I have just one registered copy of WinXP Home. Will there
be any conflicts if I'm using the same...part number or whatever
on the two drives.

Thanks for your help.

BONEHEAD · May 17, 2003, 12:01 AM

Not sure what u r trying to do. But you can set the jumpers on the drives as master and slave. Primary would be the master secondary would be the slave. Yes a 350w ps is mor than enough I drove all of my crap on a 350w ps for over a year. no you do not need speacial software windows will see it and all you have to is format it. I doubt you have a case cooling problem my case is 100 f w/ 5 fans and my drives are at 100-150 f (scsi very hot).

AT_curiousB · May 17, 2003, 12:03 AM

1.) I have plenty of slots to put the additional HDD in, but
is the 350-watt Power supply enough to power these two HD's and still
supply my R9700 Pro with enough juice, along with 5 case fans?

Probably not, best upgrade the PSU to 400W or Higher.

2.) Do I need any kind of special software to both set-up the two
HDD's, and also to switch between them?

No windows will do it all for you.

4.) Of the 5 case fans I have, the Hard-drive bay has only
one fan to cool the bay. Is this enough to keep things nice and crispy
cool?
(I also have a 1.5 ton air-conditioner siting on the floor just to cool my 'pooter.
The drip/catch pan gets a weekly cleaning else...stinks like sh*t)

Not really sure on that, best to use trila and error there i think unless someone else knows more and posts.

5.) Finally, if one HD is running, and I'm not using the other one,
will it be running all the time, or can I switch it off if I want?
(Which would kind of answer my Power Supply question...)

Ok basically the operating system will be on only one drive, the C drive, the other drive will be allocated a letter by Windows, usually D.

for best results with two hard drives it is best to place them on seperate IDE channels. I would suspect that at the moment you have your hard drive connected to the primary IDE channel on the MO BO, and your cd drive on the secondary.

Install the drive into the bay, and connect it on the same cable as the cd drive, but first make sure that the hard drive is configured to be the master and the cd rom drive is configured to be the slave, check your manuals as to how to go about this.

When you next boot up, Windows will recognise the drive and allow you to format it.

That is it in a nutshell, there are other things that you may want to do like partition the drive, for that I would recommend Partition Magic 8 from Powerquest, http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/ is the link for that info.

Crazy Diamond · May 17, 2003, 12:06 AM

You basically just have to plug it in, in a free IDE slot. You should be OK for power. Since I assume you already have windows installed on the maxtor, you'll be able to format the seagate from within windows. There's no need to install windows on the seagate, unless you want to boot from it. It'll just come up as an extra drive to save files on in My Computer.

I don't think you can turn drives off, without unplugging them. Hard-disks spin down when not used for a while, so you wouldn't want to really.

Has this helped?

~~BMG_Cya=-~~ · May 17, 2003, 12:17 AM

Cool. So I'm basically G2G. Just plug-in and go. I may wait until I upgrade my CPU/MOBO pretty soon.
I'll be getting a new Power Supply then, 450.

Thanks for the help you guys. I don't feel so clueless now.

megatron · May 17, 2003, 12:20 AM

You can set the bios to turn of HDD after 5min of inactivity. I have two Hdd, two CD-rom like drives, 7 case fans, 9700 pro, overclocked CPU sometime 2.1v, and I see absolutely no difference between my enermax 350w and enermax 550w except the 350w 5v rail is 4.88v and 550w is 5v-5.03v.

I would partition a 3Gb partition for the OS and the a couple of other partitions to separate installed applications and game and downloaded data. I want to get rid of my 40Gb wd 400ab and 60Gb dx740 maxtor and replace with a 120Gb WD.

Matth · May 17, 2003, 03:39 PM

Software is available from the makers sites to aid in transferring a partion from one drive to the other.

With two different makes of drive, you can use software keyed to either drive to do this
The Maxtor software is called Max-blast
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/dow.../maxblast3.htm
The Seagate is Disc Wizard
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/...s/discwiz.html

In the main, you would probably do best with the FASTEST drive as boot, regardless of size
If one is a 7200 rpm drive and the other is less, I'd boot from the 7200 - even if it's the smaller.

If you place them as MASTER on primary and secondary, arrange to place a CD-Writer (if fitted) one the cable of the driv you will use least with it.

eyeguy616 · May 17, 2003, 06:37 PM

You know, there's a nice option for those with lots of harddrives: removable drive trays! Here's an example of what I'm talking about. I currently have three trays in my pc so that I can switch out harddrives either for diagnosing problems, trying out different operating systems, or just plain needing a different installation all together! The trays themselves are jumperless: they simply pass the signal through to the harddrive, so the harddrive must be set to either master or slave. Since I have three of them, I have two masters, so I can leave the majority of my drives as master and just have one as slave to transfer files between them.
Oh, they can't be "hot-swapped," so you have to power down before making any switch. It's still a major time saver if you need this sort of thing.

Have fun!
~eyeguy616
-If you look at my sig, you can see just how many harddrives I have for use.

Sufu · May 22, 2003, 08:57 AM

Don't hook up a CD-RW to a HDD, you will end up slowing down the drive more than likeley. I would just slave the other drive to your current boot drive. If you look at the label on the hard drive, there is instructions that tell you where to place the jumper to make the drive a slave.

May 16, 2003, 11:44 PM	#1
~~BMG_Cya=-~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 718 Rep Power: 0	How do you have two HDD's? I have a 40GB Maxtor HDD and a 60GB Seagate Barracuda HDD. I am currently using the Maxtor, but would also like to use the Seagate as a secondary or maybe primary HD. Obviously, I have never done this before, that's why I'm asking. My PC specs are as follows: Athlon XP 1900+ Sapphire Radeon 9700 Pro 512 MB Crucial DDR SDRAM Gigabyte GA-7DXR MOBO 350-watt Power supply WinXP Home DX9.0a Questions: 1.) I have plenty of slots to put the additional HDD in, but is the 350-watt Power supply enough to power these two HD's and still supply my R9700 Pro with enough juice, along with 5 case fans? 2.) Do I need any kind of special software to both set-up the two HDD's, and also to switch between them? 3.) If the answer to question 2 is yes, what are some good programs for this type of stuff? 4.) Of the 5 case fans I have, the Hard-drive bay has only one fan to cool the bay. Is this enough to keep things nice and crispy cool? (I also have a 1.5 ton air-conditioner siting on the floor just to cool my 'pooter. The drip/catch pan gets a weekly cleaning else...stinks like sh*t) 5.) Finally, if one HD is running, and I'm not using the other one, will it be running all the time, or can I switch it off if I want? (Which would kind of answer my Power Supply question...) I really need a pretty in-depth how-to on this, as I don't want to screw things up. Oh yeah, I have just one registered copy of WinXP Home. Will there be any conflicts if I'm using the same...part number or whatever on the two drives. Thanks for your help.

May 17, 2003, 12:01 AM	#2
BONEHEAD DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: TEXAS Posts: 182 Rep Power: 0	Not sure what u r trying to do. But you can set the jumpers on the drives as master and slave. Primary would be the master secondary would be the slave. Yes a 350w ps is mor than enough I drove all of my crap on a 350w ps for over a year. no you do not need speacial software windows will see it and all you have to is format it. I doubt you have a case cooling problem my case is 100 f w/ 5 fans and my drives are at 100-150 f (scsi very hot). __________________ [COLOR=red]Xp Pro Sp2 Amd Athlon 2400+ O/C 2800+ (2250 GHZ)Antec True 550 ps Dragon Orb 3 7000rpm 2 80mm Case fans [/COLOR] [COLOR=red]2 40mm case fans[/COLOR] [COLOR=red]1.5 Gig Ecc Ram Msi KT2 COMBO[/COLOR] [COLOR=red]Adaptec 29320A-R[/COLOR] [COLOR=red]8 Seagate 36 gig ultra 320 10k [/COLOR] [COLOR=red]1 Toshiba SD-M1401 [/COLOR] [COLOR=red]1 Plextor 124TS cdrw [/COLOR] [COLOR=red]2 Nec4551a 1 Samsung TS-H552U 1 Nec3520a[/COLOR] [COLOR=red]Ati AIW Radeon 8500 128mb SoundBlaster X-Fi Platinum[/COLOR] [COLOR=red]Midiland sm7401 5.1 Hp 4C scanner VPR 17'' Lcd[/COLOR] [COLOR=red]Apc Back-ups RS1500[/COLOR] [COLOR=#ff0000][/COLOR] [COLOR=#ff0000]Taken by the ex maybe to return soon[/COLOR]

May 17, 2003, 12:03 AM	#3
AT_curiousB DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: May 2002 Location: England Posts: 128 Rep Power: 0	1.) I have plenty of slots to put the additional HDD in, but is the 350-watt Power supply enough to power these two HD's and still supply my R9700 Pro with enough juice, along with 5 case fans? Probably not, best upgrade the PSU to 400W or Higher. 2.) Do I need any kind of special software to both set-up the two HDD's, and also to switch between them? No windows will do it all for you. 4.) Of the 5 case fans I have, the Hard-drive bay has only one fan to cool the bay. Is this enough to keep things nice and crispy cool? (I also have a 1.5 ton air-conditioner siting on the floor just to cool my 'pooter. The drip/catch pan gets a weekly cleaning else...stinks like sh*t) Not really sure on that, best to use trila and error there i think unless someone else knows more and posts. 5.) Finally, if one HD is running, and I'm not using the other one, will it be running all the time, or can I switch it off if I want? (Which would kind of answer my Power Supply question...) Ok basically the operating system will be on only one drive, the C drive, the other drive will be allocated a letter by Windows, usually D. for best results with two hard drives it is best to place them on seperate IDE channels. I would suspect that at the moment you have your hard drive connected to the primary IDE channel on the MO BO, and your cd drive on the secondary. Install the drive into the bay, and connect it on the same cable as the cd drive, but first make sure that the hard drive is configured to be the master and the cd rom drive is configured to be the slave, check your manuals as to how to go about this. When you next boot up, Windows will recognise the drive and allow you to format it. That is it in a nutshell, there are other things that you may want to do like partition the drive, for that I would recommend Partition Magic 8 from Powerquest, http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/ is the link for that info. __________________ Bill

May 17, 2003, 12:20 AM	#6
megatron DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 93 Rep Power: 0	You can set the bios to turn of HDD after 5min of inactivity. I have two Hdd, two CD-rom like drives, 7 case fans, 9700 pro, overclocked CPU sometime 2.1v, and I see absolutely no difference between my enermax 350w and enermax 550w except the 350w 5v rail is 4.88v and 550w is 5v-5.03v. I would partition a 3Gb partition for the OS and the a couple of other partitions to separate installed applications and game and downloaded data. I want to get rid of my 40Gb wd 400ab and 60Gb dx740 maxtor and replace with a 120Gb WD. __________________ My system specs and 3dmark2001se score Rad8500 bioses, UT2k3, GTA3 pages & more. Also watercooling endeavours.

May 17, 2003, 12:06 AM	#4
Crazy Diamond DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Wiltshire, UK Posts: 87 Rep Power: 0	You basically just have to plug it in, in a free IDE slot. You should be OK for power. Since I assume you already have windows installed on the maxtor, you'll be able to format the seagate from within windows. There's no need to install windows on the seagate, unless you want to boot from it. It'll just come up as an extra drive to save files on in My Computer. I don't think you can turn drives off, without unplugging them. Hard-disks spin down when not used for a while, so you wouldn't want to really. Has this helped?

May 17, 2003, 12:17 AM	Thread Starter #5
~~BMG_Cya=-~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 718 Rep Power: 0	Cool. So I'm basically G2G. Just plug-in and go. I may wait until I upgrade my CPU/MOBO pretty soon. I'll be getting a new Power Supply then, 450. Thanks for the help you guys. I don't feel so clueless now.

May 17, 2003, 03:39 PM	#7
Matth Flash Banner Hater Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: UK Posts: 3,426 Rep Power: 93 System Specs	Software is available from the makers sites to aid in transferring a partion from one drive to the other. With two different makes of drive, you can use software keyed to either drive to do this The Maxtor software is called Max-blast http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/dow.../maxblast3.htm The Seagate is Disc Wizard http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/...s/discwiz.html In the main, you would probably do best with the FASTEST drive as boot, regardless of size If one is a 7200 rpm drive and the other is less, I'd boot from the 7200 - even if it's the smaller. If you place them as MASTER on primary and secondary, arrange to place a CD-Writer (if fitted) one the cable of the driv you will use least with it.

May 17, 2003, 06:37 PM	#8
eyeguy616 ZZzzzzzzzzzz........... Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Texas Posts: 324 Rep Power: 0	You know, there's a nice option for those with lots of harddrives: removable drive trays! Here's an example of what I'm talking about. I currently have three trays in my pc so that I can switch out harddrives either for diagnosing problems, trying out different operating systems, or just plain needing a different installation all together! The trays themselves are jumperless: they simply pass the signal through to the harddrive, so the harddrive must be set to either master or slave. Since I have three of them, I have two masters, so I can leave the majority of my drives as master and just have one as slave to transfer files between them. Oh, they can't be "hot-swapped," so you have to power down before making any switch. It's still a major time saver if you need this sort of thing. Have fun! ~eyeguy616 -If you look at my sig, you can see just how many harddrives I have for use.

May 22, 2003, 08:57 AM	#9
Sufu DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Massachusetts Posts: 25 Rep Power: 0	Don't hook up a CD-RW to a HDD, you will end up slowing down the drive more than likeley. I would just slave the other drive to your current boot drive. If you look at the label on the hard drive, there is instructions that tell you where to place the jumper to make the drive a slave.