Another one for the techies....

[Tigger]

I'm after a second harddrive for my PC (A Dell Dimension 4100) but I noticed there are a number of different types of hard drive:
SCSI 50 Pin, ScSI 68 Pin abd SCSI 80 Pin. How do I know which one is right for my system, and will all hard drives work as a secondary drive.

With any luck I'll be going for one a a computer fair this webdnesday and I want to know exactly what I want so I don't get the wrong thing.

Thanx if anyone can give me any advice on this.

[Phil]

Alright mate,

Do you have a SCSI drive (and a SCSI adaptor) already in your system?, just that Hard Drives usually come in two types (IDE & SCSI), IDE drives are now more common and cheaper, SCSI tend to be a bit more "specialist".

PM me if you want more info....

[doolz]

hello m8 have ya had a scsi card put in your comp m8 coz im lookingf at the spec fpr a dell dimension 4100 and i cantsee no scsci

and yas jus need a eide hard drive fella
preferabley an ata100 ultra dma one

[Tigger]

Right - here's where my lack of tech knowledge lets me down. I've definately not put a scsi card in the machine so it must be one of them eide thingies that I need. It's got to plug into that big fat ribbon cable that runs inside the PC.

What does the ATA100 mean and why do I want it?

Will all EIDE be configurable as a second drive?

Just as an example would this be suitable? http://www.jungle.com/webapp/wcs/sto...Id=11206121001

or would this be better as it runs at 7200rpm but is not ATA100!!!
http://www.jungle.com/webapp/wcs/sto...Id=11206118001

Fitting and configuring it won't be a problem cos I did it before on my works PC when we canibalised a spare machine - I just want to be sure that I get the right one to fit in!

Thanx for your help guys - like most people I get kinda nervous when it comes to messin about with the gubbins inside the box!!!!!

Right you def need an IDE (integrated drive electronics) hard drive.ATA UDMA it doesn't really matter to the average person.
There is no gaurentee that two devices will work in complete harmony.
Most PCs can drive 4 ide devices and more requires a RAID card.
Three ways to connect your IDE hard drive.
1.Run each drive on a seperate IDE channel if possible(recomended).Configure master and slave from the BIOS.
2.Use a dual cable, but connect the end connector to your drive you already and the middle connector to your new drive. Use the Manual jumper settings to configure the new drive to SLAVE.
3.As above but set jumper settings to both drives as CS (channel select). This means the PC will decide which one will be the master and slave (dodgy)

[Tigger]

Yeah - what I did last time was nick a drive from another pc - moved this little metal connector at the back to specify it as a second drive and then defined it in the bios.

I then partitioned off a 2 Bg scratch disk and had the rest as a storage drive.

Should be easy enough as long as I get the right drive!

[Myk]

I can send you a nice ATA100 or ATA133 drive running at 7200rpm if you want Tigger just let me know what size you want and Ill get back to you with a price. If ya like the price cool and if not then no worries, although I'm pretty sure I can sort a good price out for ya m8.

[Tigger]

Ah too late! I went down to a computer fair last week (after checking the prices on the web) and found that they weren't any cheaper at the fair (and I'd have a bitch of a time returning it if there were any problems) so I've already ordered one off the net and with any luck it should be arriving Monday!

Got me a Barracuda IV 40.8GB ATA100 3.5LP 8.2ms 7200RPM for £60! If I suddenly vanish from the board it probably means I've blown up my PC trying to fit it!!!

[fugjostle]

Sorry mate... bit late as usual but maybe it may help ya next time


What does the ATA100 mean and why do I want it?

ATA100 is the specification for the interface. As hard drives have got bigger and faster the interface starts to become a bottleneck and so the interface has been changed to keep the speeds up.

ATA100 supports 100Mbps data transfer.

ATA133 supports 133Mbps data transfer but its a relatively new interface and not many motherboards support it but it does connect to ATA100 interfaces.

I could tell you how good your Seagate drive is but I'll let your make up your own mind

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[Tigger]

Right it's here! No bloody mounting screws with it so I've got to go out and get some! Then I'll be fitting it so fingers crossed I'll be back online in a bit! If not - it's been nice knowing you all!

[fugjostle]

Good Luck m8

That reminds me, I should really do a backup soon

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[Tigger]

OH shit i think I've cocked it up!

I've installed it as a slave drive no problem and using the windows 2000 pro Computer management settings I set it up as the F: drive and formatted it.

Then i saw I had formatted it to simple layout and NTFS file system!

So I've tried reformatting it into FAT32 and I want to partition it into a 2Gb + 10GB + the rest as three separate drives but when I try reformatting it in FAT32 I get an error!

Have I destroyed it already?

[fugjostle]

You can't convert from NTFS to FAT32 from within Windows 2000 (I don't use win2k but I think I'm right). You'll need to use 'fdisk' from a msdos floppy to format the disk.

I'll go away and verify but from memory I think thats your best course of action.

Unless, you can format the partition with the disk admin tool, which I've never used.

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[Tigger]

OK so whats the command line from DOS to FDISK it (the drive if F: ) into a FAT32?

[fugjostle]

Just checked microsoft.com and there is a KB article for converting to Fat32 and the creation of diskette with fdisk on:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q253774

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