[RESOLVED] Have 2 Hard Drives - Want to remove one of them
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Thread: [RESOLVED] Have 2 Hard Drives - Want to remove one of them

  1. #1
    Quincy_Moot
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    Question Have 2 Hard Drives - Want to remove one of them

    HELP!!!
    I had a shop install a 2nd hard drive about a year ago, in my old Pentium 100 (now my son's machine). The "original" is 1 gig and the new one (4.3 gig)is the slave. I need the 1 gig drive for another computer so I want to remove it and make the 4.3 gig the primary drive. Can anyone help me with step-by-step instructions?

  2. #2
    Registered User
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    Assuming that you will be reinstalling the operating system and software from scratch and further that you have data backed up, and even further that the drives are IDE and not SCSI, you can simply unplug the drive you want to remove from the system. Ground yourself by touching the metal at the back of the case with they system plugged in but not on (if you live in an area of high humidity this will probably be sufficient static precaution - dry climate - get an antistatic wrist strap). Unplug the system. Open the case. There are two connectors to the HDD, one power connector (4 wires to it) and one IDE connector (on a large flat ribbon cable; unplug these. Remove the drive from its mounting: sometimes it's on rails with clips (press the clips and it slides out); sometimes it's held in with screws (count the screws - don't leave any loose in the case). Be careful not to drop the drive - very bad! You will probably need to remove the drive you want to keep, as well. Examine it closely: are the settings for jumpers controlling its configuration marked on the drive - master, slave, cable select? If yes, reconfigure the drive as the master. If no, you will have note the make and model number and find these settings on the manufacturer's web site. Once the drive is reconfigured, put it back into the system almost the way it came out - everything the same except that it will take the connector on the IDE cable that the drive you are removing from the system previously used - make sure the red stripe on the IDE ribbon cable goes towards the power connector. If the drives were on separate IDE cables, the drives may have been both configured as masters - the process is simpler - just swap the IDE cable from one drive to the other. Once all this is done, you can reboot your system. You may have to go into your cmos settings to set the drive parameters if your system is not auto-configuring - look in basic CMOS settings - if it says "auto" for the hard drives you can exit and let the boot proceed. If it says something else, exit this area and go to the hard drive autodetect section and let it detect your drive; then exit and save and let the boot proceed. Finally you can format the drive and proceed with software installation.

    [This message has been edited by houseisland (edited January 19, 2000).]

  3. #3
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    Oooops. Forgot something really obvious. You will need a bootable floppy with format.com on it. The W98 installation disk will serve this purpose. Once the drive with the OS is removed the system, you will need to boot from this floppy.

    _________________________________________

    After thought: a potential problem

    If the partition on the second drive is not active, things will not go quite right. What will happen is that you will be able to see the drive if you boot from the floppy and you will be able to read and write to it. But you won't be able to boot from it. If this happens, come back again. There are a few more steps to be taken in this case.

    [This message has been edited by houseisland (edited January 19, 2000).]

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