Hardrive question! Help!

Factual Questions
1

Ok I just bought a samsung hardrive. I want to make it a slave how do I set it up on My computer to be a slave?

2

Set the jumpers to slave. There should be a diagram on the hard drive for what pins to bridge. Once that’s done, plug it into the last connector on the IDE ribbon, plug in the power, fasten it to the case, and turn on the computer. When it boots up, enter the BIOS (by pressing what key or combination of keys it tells you to “enter setup”). Different BIOSes have different options, but what you’re looking for is the hard drive auto-detect. Run that, exit the BIOS, saving changes, and you should be all set. You’ll probably have to format the drive, but that’s another lesson.

3

thank You. :slight_smile:

4

If you’re nervous about the BIOS part, check what flavor you have when the computer starts up. If it doesn’t show a brand name (Compaq, Dell, whatever), look at the top of the screen for (something)BIOS version X.XX. If you tell us what the (something) is, we can give you more concrete instructions. The most common ones are AwardBIOS, AMIBIOS, and… there’s at least one other one that I’m not remembering at the moment. Good luck!

5

You can’t use a slave HD without setting the original one to Master too…The HD should come
with instructions on how to do this, every HD I have bought has.

6

Originally posted by handy

Possibly, but most modern hard drives are set to be solo/master as the default and may not need changing (you should still look, though). If you can’t find the jumper settings to label the drives as master or slave you can check the manufacturer’s web site. Just a week ago I found the proper settings to set a 6 year old 540 MB hard drive to slave on IBM’s web site.

7

While we’re on the topic of installing new drives, is the procedure pretty much the same for my CDRW, followed by installation of the software in Windows?

8

Yes.

9

This is just the thread I was wanting to post. Well, the last bit about the CDRW.

I am going to be looking for one tomorrow. I have a DVD drive at the moment, but I want to get a CDRW instead/as well.

It does not look like I have any extra slots on my motherboard (but I am not totally sure) to plug another IDE cable into. I was thinking of taking out the DVD drive (we never watch DVDs on it and are thinking of buying a DVD player anyway, making it pretty redundant) and swapping it with a new CDRW. My questions are:

  1. Should I be able to remove the DVD and put the CDRW in the same place?
  2. Should I be able to set the jumpers to the same position on the CDRW as are currently on the DVD drive, or will I have to figure it out?
  3. If one of the IDE cables has an extra connector, should I be able to connect it to that and set it up as a slave?
  4. If I replace the DVD drive with the CDRW, will I need to mess with BIOS? I assume (from what typo mna said that if I hook it up to the second connector on another IDE cable, I will have to set it up as a slave, right?

I’m kind of nervous cause I know a little bit, but if something does not work, I do not know what to do to fix it. That makes me pause.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Rick

10

  1. Yes.

  2. New drives almost always come set to solo master, so you shouldn’t have to change anything for a straight replacement. If not, look for a diagram on the drive showing the different settings. If all else fails, try removing the jumper completely. This usually sets the drive to solo master.

  3. Yes, just don’t put it on the same cable as your main hard drive. It will slow things down.

  4. No, unless you’re putting a DVD or CDRW where a hard drive used to be. The master/slave setting is done with jumpers. DVDs and CDRWs should be detected automatically.

11

Just a caution. You should consult your computer manual also. When I added an additional hard drive to my new Hewlett Packard computer I had to set the jumpers to cable select rather than slave. I’m not sure why, but it did work.

Bob