Let's try this again...SATA hard drive install.

Factual Questions
1

New and improved thread with links and everything.
In relation to this thread.

The computer in question.

The Motherboard.

The SATA connectors on the MB.

The problem I still have is I can’t find exact directions for adding a second SATA hard drive.

The existing SATA hd is a 250 G unit with the operating system (XP) installed on it. The new 200 G unit will be for data, photos, and video rendering and such.

My question continues to be; Can I just connect the new hard drive to the adjacent SATA port on the MB without causing any problems? The info with the new Maxtor 200G drive mentions a number of times that the drivers must be installed before the drive is to be connected. What I don’t know is if they mean general windows drivers for SATA devices or do they mean a specific driver for that hard drive.
I sort of think that since there is already a SATA drive installed that I can just connect the new one and the machine will recognise it and I can continue with the format and partition of the new drive without any problems.
However, I don’t want the system to crash and/or Eff up the existing drive and or it’s data.
My other conern is getting into the Bios to set up some sort of RAID commands for the new drive like stripping (?). I would like to read and write to both drives at the same time but I don’t need to have the information shared between drives.
Looking at the link to the SATA ports, the existing drive is in the 0 (D) port, and I’m thinking the new drive should go in the 1 © port?
The PDF that came on the machine for the MB does not specifically mention any steps to add a second hard drive. The booklet that came with the new maxtor drive pretty much just covers an installation of a drive that will contain the OS.
I haven’t been able to find a step by step website for doing exactly what I want to do.
Help!
Should I just connect the new drive and let 'er rip?
And what method of RAID should I use, If I’m able to control that from the bios?

(In the some of the reading I did there was mention of Native, Legacy, RAID 1, 0, etc.) I would like to be hooked up with some more comprehesive info if possible.

Again, thanks for the info and your patience.

PS, I’ve got all the cables and the power supply has a connector for the new drive.

2

Yes. As long as you turn the power off first, it’s pretty tough to break things while installing new hardware. You don’t need to install drivers, and you shouldn’t need to change anything in BIOS.

You don’t want it.

3

If you are runnign XP on a SATA drive, then you already have SAAT drivers. The drivers are unique to the SATA controller card, not the ahrd drive, so it doesn’t matter what the brand/size/color of the new HD is. Just turn the PC off, plug it into the spare SATA slot, hook up the power (make sure to use the SATA power connector OR the old style legacy connector, NOT both.)

When you firsr boot into windows, you will still have to format the drive. Go to control panel, then into the device manager (in the XP style it’s under Performance and Maintainance. then System, then hardware, then device manager.) There should be a catagory for hard drives (not owning a SATA drive, I don’t know if it’s it’s own catagroy or lumped into the catagory for IDE devicse, so look arouhd.) It should be listed with a yellow quetion mark or something next toit. Right click and select format (I think this is what you do.)

All done!

Oh, and don’t use RAID. RAID does one of two things: mirros hard drives incase one fails, or uses two hard drives as one hard drive to double the transfer rate, neither of which you need your new hard drive to do.

4

You don’t want RAID, you’d need to set that up (if you were to use it) when you first did your install.

If you are currently running a SATA HDD, then you have the drivers needed installed already.

I added a second SATA HDD to my rig after I got it up and running. I remember having to to format it and name it for it to be recognized by my machine, I think through “Add New Hardware” in the control panel. It’s been a while, but it was not a retail version and had no utility disks, so it was something in XP that worked out the formatting and naming.

Just be sure you have your SATA port enabled in your BIOS, hook it up, and go to “Install New Hardware” and see if you can at least get it to show up. It won’t hurt anything to go that far. But you will have to format it before it will show up when you “Explore” your drives.

So just go that far, surely some more computer savvy folks will be along.

There are formatting nuances, like creating a FAT 32 partition for DOS and things like that that I don’t understand, I formatted both of my drives as NTFS, you can read more about that Here

5
      • I would bet you are supposed to use the “A” and “B” plugs for regular-access drives. Also when you first boot up, go into the mobo’s BIOS and make sure that the added-drive’s SATA plug (on the mobo) is enabled, and that the boot order is still set to the real system OS drive. (note on that Gateway page that the mobo is labeled in the reverse order that Gateway labels them…? :confused: )
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6

Thanks guys, I am now armed with enough information to destroy large quantities of data.
I’ll report back with progress.

7

It went in smoovely. No probs at all. The Maxblaster Utility saw the new drive and partitioned and installed.

8
      • Technically you do not need to use “Maxblaster Utility” or any other formatting utility; WinXP can partition and format drives itself. Go to control panel->administrative tools->computer management->storage->disk management. WinXP does not display unformatted drives in “my computer” but they should show up as unallocated space in the disk manager. After they are formatted they should be added automatically to the “my computer” view.
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9

I would have done that, but there were explicit instructions with the drive NOT to use any windows based format/partition utilities. (?).