Second Hard Drive

S

SirDeity

Big Geek
Hello,

I currently have a 66.1GB 10,000 RPM hard drive. It is way too small to fit all the games I want on it. I am thinking about buying a second hard drive to use just for games and entertainment, while I keep the smaller one for work.

I'd like a fast hard drive, but not so fast that I'll just be spending lots of money without even noticing the difference. My computer is fairly old. It is a duel core with a total of 3.6GHz processor, 2GB memory, and a 7950GT NVIDIA video card. I'm not sure what my mother board is... is that important for deciding on a hard drive?

I've never purchased or upgraded my hard drive before (only video cards, sound cards, and memory), so I don't know what compatible issues could occur. Can someone please walk me through the process of choosing a compatible hard drive to add to my computer, if even possible? \

I was thinking I would set the second hard drive up so that upon starting up the compter, I'd have to select from the BIOS which hard drive to boot from. That way if there's ever a virus or anything from all the game related stuff I download for the newer hard drive, it can't cross over to the older hard drive. Is my understanding of how this works accurate?


Thanks a ton for all the assistance!
 
SirDeity said:
I'd like a fast hard drive, but not so fast that I'll just be spending lots of money without even noticing the difference. My computer is fairly old. It is a duel core with a total of 3.6GHz processor, 2GB memory, and a 7950GT NVIDIA video card. I'm not sure what my mother board is... is that important for deciding on a hard drive?
Click to expand...
yes and no, do you want an P ATA drive (IDE) or the newer SATA HDD (faster, but requires a SATA interface (SATA 1 or 2)
SirDeity said:
I've never purchased or upgraded my hard drive before (only video cards, sound cards, and memory), so I don't know what compatible issues could occur. Can someone please walk me through the process of choosing a compatible hard drive to add to my computer, if even possible?
Click to expand...
well first there was IDE (40 connector) then after many updates IDE (80 connector) was released then came SATA 1 then SATA2,
  • SATA1 - transfer speed = 1.5 Gbit per second
  • SATA2 - speed = 3Gbit per second
SATA sound much better than IDE, but, its not much quicker because SATA & IDE both transfer data by using what is called burst rate (not a constant rate) whereas SATA3 transfers data at 6Gbit/s at a constant rate, but, unfortunately i don't think they will be released until about mid 2008

SirDeity said:
I was thinking I would set the second hard drive up so that upon starting up the compter, I'd have to select from the BIOS which hard drive to boot from.
Click to expand...
yes
SirDeity said:
That way if there's ever a virus or anything from all the game related stuff I download for the newer hard drive, it can't cross over to the older hard drive. Is my understanding of how this works accurate?
Click to expand...
not exactly, with Windoze a virus can do anything it wants[ot]thats why 1 reason why i use Linux[/ot]so, if you have 2 HDDs on 1 Windows system, if the virus decide it wants to go to your other HDD, then to your other HDD it goes
 
I'd like to spend between $100.00 and $200.00 USD. I'm not sure whether I should want the ATA or SATA because I don't know anything about SATA interfaces. Is that part of the motherboard? I'm not even sure if my motherboard allows two harddrives at once or not. Do most motherboards allow it?

What would you buy with up to $200.00 to spend if you were looking for a good balance of durability, speed, and capacity in a hard drive (with my computer specs)?

The SATA2 speed specification obviously sounds great, but I'm concerned about compatibility and budget restrictions. Are these concerns unnecessary?
 
SirDeity said:
I'd like to spend between $100.00 and $200.00 USD. I'm not sure whether I should want the ATA or SATA because I don't know anything about SATA interfaces. Is that part of the motherboard? I'm not even sure if my motherboard allows two harddrives at once or not. Do most motherboards allow it?
Click to expand...
yes you can usually connect at least 4 devices (including CD / DVD)

IDE basically support 2 device per cable, thats why their called Parallel ATA, but, SATA devices can only be connected with one device per cable

IDE devices can be set to master / slave / CS (cable select) on either the primary or secondary IDE channels (cables) all CS is: it defines which device is master / slave by its location on the cable, most motherboards boot from the primary master, the device connected furthest from the moth board will become the master and the device closest to the motherboard (middle IDE connector)

SirDeity said:
What would you buy with up to $200.00 to spend if you were looking for a good balance of durability, speed, and capacity in a hard drive (with my computer specs)?
Click to expand...
well, it depends what interface you have, download & install PCWizard to see what hardware you have and post the result back here
 
System Summary:

Mainboard : Dell 0U7084
Chipset : Intel i925X
Processor : Intel Pentium 4 560J @ 3600 MHz
Physical Memory : 2048 MB (2 x 1024 DDR2-SDRAM )
Video Card : Nvidia Corp GeForce 7950 GT
Hard Disk : WDC (74 GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : TSSTcorp CDRW/DVD TSH492B
Monitor Type : ACER AL2423W - 24 inches
Network Card : Broadcom Corp BCM5750A1 NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet PCIe
Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.01.2600 Service Pack 2
DirectX : Version 9.0c (July 2007)


Hard Drives:

Number of Disk Controller : 2
Number of Hard Disk : 1
Number of CD-ROM Drive : 1
Drives Letters : A:\ C:\ D:\
Floppy Disk : 3½" HD (1.44 Mo)
Drive C: (Hard Disk) : 16 GB available on 71 GB
Drive D: (DVD-Rom) : 0 KB available on 662 MB
 
SirDeity said:
DVD-Rom Drive : TSSTcorp CDRW/DVD TSH492B
Click to expand...
right, your CD is Atapi (IDE) and is probably either the primary or secondary slave, so, assuming you don't have a SATA controller / interface, i would say you also may have Firewire (IEEE 1394), as many mobo's i've looked at the specs of have Firewire, but, they could have had a Firewire card added (unlikely)
SirSeity said:
Number of Disk Controller : 2
Click to expand...
so, you have a primary & secondary IDE, so, adding a 133Mbit/s IDE HDD is easy, just plug it in format & assign it a drive letter in windoze, and reboot (i think)

BTW: how big a HDD are you wanting to add ?

bearing in mind XP by default and maybe, your BIOS (unlikely) maybe restricted to 137Gb, but, you can get a HDD larger than 137 Gb and only create a partition upto the 137Gb limit and resize the partition later, the XP limitation can be fixed by slipstreaming your HDD drivers into your XP CD onto a blank CDr (legal)

have fun

BTW:
 
Wow! Why does XP limit the hard drive space to 137GB? That doesn't make any sense to me. I know a lot of people who use hard drives with more than 137GB.... and they all have Windows XP. I believe you, of course, it's just very surprising to learn this.

I was thinking of getting something aroung 500GB... if the prices are appropriate.
 
yes, your right, but XP SP2 doesn't support HDDs over 137Gb drives by default until you slipstream the drivers onto a black CDr or you can load the HDD drivers at the start of every installation of XP, personally, i had a 160Gb HDD with XP, so, i had to slipstream my XP CD to enable me to use over 137Gb, trust me[ot]and never trust anyone who says "trust me"[/ot]it's easy, slipstreaming is usually only done to either integrate service packs or to integrate hardware drivers into you XP CD

BTW: please reread everything here, as, i don't think you fully understand
 
So I'll have to install my operating system (Windows XP pro) on my new hard drive, right? Will these mean that I'll require a new copy of Windows XP so that I'll have a legal CD-Key for the second hard drive?
 
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