Wiring two hdd

[sanyotech]

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When installing a second hdd. How do you wire one as master and one as slave? You do use the same cable right?

[Stalemate]

Welcome to WD, sanyotech.


If you want to connect both drives to the same IDE cable, yes. The Master should be on the end of the cable, and the Slave in the "middle", closer to the IDE connector on the motherboard.

Don't forget to set up the jumpers on both drives so that each reflects its role of master or slave.





This is how Maxtor does it:




Is there on OS on the drive designated as slave?

[sanyotech]

Well a d e p t, mainly I was just wondering about installing a blank hdd. And also, when the computer boots up does it automatically recognize it and assign a drive letter, or do you have to alter the bios or something?

[Archer]

The bios will normally recognise it if set to auto detect and provided the jumpers are set correctly but the drive will need partitioning and formatting.The method used will depend upon the operating system that is installed on the system.

[sanyotech]

I installed it like a d e p t said and I just so happened to be using a Maxtor hdd as in a d e p t's example. The computer recognized it fine and assigned a letter. I formatted it, and I am now running Scandisk on it (windows suggested this), but why does it need to be partitioned if it is a completely seperate hdd from the master? Thanks for your help, both of you.

[Stalemate]

Unless it is already partitioned - which I strongly doubt - you will need to do so before it is recognized and made usable by an operating system (WinXP in this case). You will not be able to read/write to it if you don't.

You can do that using a boot diskette/CD to use the FDISK utility, or simply proceed within WinXP to do so through Disk Management, which is a component of Computer Management, found in the Administrative Tools folder of the Control Panel.


Glad to hear it went so well.

[sanyotech]

After I installed, formatted, and scandisked it, I made a little notepad file and I successfully saved it to the blank hdd, then reopened it, and deleted it. How did that happen if I must first partition it?

[Stalemate]

Most probably before the formatting process under Windows, the OS partitioned the entire space and alloted it to the drive letter it now has.

Do you recall if you were asked to use the entire hard disk space when formatting?

[sanyotech]

Most probably before the formatting process under Windows, the OS partitioned the entire space and alloted it to the drive letter it now has.

Do you recall if you were asked to use the entire hard disk space when formatting?

No, wasn't asked to used the entire hard disk space. It asked just like as if you were formatting a floppy (i.e. quick erase, full, etc.) That's all.

[Stalemate]

Oh well.

I may have had a memory glitch or buffer overflow when I mentioned that.

[sanyotech]

thanks for all your help, all of you.

[Stalemate]

You're quite welcome.

Y'all come back to visit, ya hear?

We don't go out much.


...if ever, really.