Grex Hardware Conference

View Responses

Grex Hardware Item 135: Installing a second IDE HDD (WD 540mb) to an older PCI MB?
Entered by raven on Sun Sep 14 01:37:10 UTC 1997:

I need (ascii) help installing a 540mb Western Digital IDE hard drive.  I
can't seem to find the slot on the motherboard where the ribon cable plugs
in.  I looked around with a penlight and nada.  The Bios says there is
room for two more drives.  The motherboard is an older PCI board (up
to Pentium 100 CPU), this board currently has a floppy, CD-ROM, and 1.0
gig HD.  Is there some way I can tell from BIOS or Windows95 if there is
an extra slot available and I just didn't find, or did I just buy myself
an expensive paperweight?  Any help is very much appreciated!  Thanks in
adavance.

3 responses total.

#1 of 3 by scott on Sun Sep 14 13:29:37 1997:

There is usually a second connector on the cable to the first drive, and 
you set jumpers on the drives to make the second drive a "slave" to the 
first (which may have a jumper setting to make it a "master").  So 2 
drive per IDE interface.  Many (but not all) PC motherboards have 2 IDE 
interfaces, for a total of 4 drives.  If you don't have a connector for 
the 2nd interface, you can buy an IDE/lpt/serial/joystick card for about 
$30.

#2 of 3 by raven on Sun Sep 14 14:36:36 1997:

Hey thanks that's the info I needed, I noticed the cable that came with
the drive had an extra connector and I was wondering what was up with the
connector, I shall check this out ASAP.

#3 of 3 by raven on Mon Sep 15 02:52:18 1997:

It did indeed do the trick.  Many thanks! :-)

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.