-
add second HD
I have two old computers that i would like to combine into one, i want add a second HD into the computer that am planning to keep for bookeeping. Both HD's have windows xp,so i will add the second HD as a slave drive, some of the software is the same, will this cause a confict? Will moving a jumper affect my dvd drive? what jumper setting should i use?
-
The first thing to do is look at the computer you are adding the drive to. Look at the ribbon cable the 1st. hard drive is attached to. Does the ribbon cable continue on to the dvd drive? If so, you will need the ribbon cable out of the second computer. Look at the hard drive you are going to put into the first computer. Where is the jumper set now? Master, slave, or cable select? This is not that critical, as long as the first cable has both the hard drive and dvd drive on the same ribbon. If that's the case, just plug the ribbon onto the motherboard in the secondary drive slot. Mount the hard drive in the bay. Connect the power plug to the hard drive. Power up the computer. Mouse over My computer, right click, click on manage, click on Disk Management, choose that hard disk, and format it. If there is any data on it you want, move it off before performing this step.
-
the HD that i am adding to the computer has a lot of data that i want to keep, do i have to re-format the drive?
-
No you do not have to format the drive to add it.
Saying that it may present you with a problem where it
moves the boot order around depending on the motherboard.
The original harddrive is the one you want to boot to
the other harddrive that you add can be used as a data (storage) drive
If it tries to boot to that added in harddrive it likely will crash completely.
XP was never too good when you changed out the hardware unless you
made special provisions to have the windows system accept the new hardware.
You cannot run the programs on the added in hard drive. That requires it to be the primary hard drive.
Which as I said likely will cause it to crash totally.
Lastly but not leastly i sure hope this XP machine "IS NOT ON THE INTERNET".
XP is wide open for "owning" by hackers, and would be especially
tempting since its for bookeeping.