How to add IDE Hard Drive to Dimension 8400

Thank You  Miss Bev.

I have the one (and only) optical drive (DVD/RW CD/RW) Nec, which came with the machine. Should I leave the IDE in the Cable slect (CS) position or make it a slave?? Thank you again :smileywink:

Larry

Cape Cod, MA. 

Where the winter snow has made its home :smileysad:

 

You can install your hard drive in cable select mode on the same chain as the CD drive. It will work. It may work slightly slower than bev's suggestion of installing a pci ide controller card, but it is much simpler. If you leave it as cable select will install as a slave to the CD drive. You can manually change the jumpers on the back of the drive to master on the hard drive and slave on the CD.

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@shesagordie wrote:

....Is it your intention to make to use the IDE HD for storage, if so, then you wiil need to partition and format it, using XP disk management....PS. How's P'town, I bet it's bloody cold there now.

Greetings again Miss Bev,

Yes I already have files on HD :-)  The HD in question is already to be installed (it's from the afore mentioned computer) :-) All I need do is open the case, and place the drive (in the CS position) on the IDE chain (ribbon) in the open or nearest to the mother board (in between the mother board connection and the cd)  and it should work, right?? Again thank both you and Mr. Shawn for the information :-)

Larry

On Cape Cod, Ma.

The temp for P-town (I'm here in Hyannis) is bbbbrrrrrrr cold 21 degrees :smileysurprised:

popeye2513.

Basically, yes, but you still need to set the IDE 'jumpers" to cable select and check the setup, as I posted.
That's too cold for me, hence the reason for heading south.

Bev.

 

popeye3513.

Then you could, connect the hard drive to the end connector and move the CD/RW DVD/RW to the middle connector of the ribbon cable, set both drives jumpers  to "Cable Select" and enter the setup [BIOS] and check that it is set to Auto [Enabled]. 
There should be a spare power plug inside the case.  Is it your intention to make to use the IDE HD for storage, if so, then you wiil need to partition and format it, using XP disk management.
You could also buy a SATA to IDE convertor, plus a SATA cable and connect the IDE HD direct to the motherboard.
Personally I would use a second SATA hard drive in a new D8400 system.  

Bev.

PS. How's P'town, I bet it's bloody cold there now.

 

popeye2513.

Not Georgia, Texas, 65 miles from the Louisiana line.

Bev.

Hi popeye

I only have one observation, you cannot run the hd as the slave behind the rom drive on the D8400, the hd will not be recognized it has to be the primary master, and in that case you will have a hard time getting the cable to hook up. Bev had the best option a controller card or go with another SATA drive then it's no problem.

I too have a sata 80g and want to add a ide drive - except to a xps gen2.  Bowtie - you have an ide - how did you set it up?

Thanks

Hi Lindy

It's pretty simple really, just hook it up cable select, primary master, boot up hitting F2 to get into bios, arrow down to primary master set it to auto, esc, save and exit, enter, boot to desktop and go to control panel/ admin tools/ comp mgr/ disk mgr, change your drive letters, right click the white area, partition and format the drive and your good to go.:smileyvery-happy:

No Lindy the Gen 2 has two ide channels primary and secondary, i miss stated in my earlier post hook it as secondary master and turn that one to auto. You have a lot of choices with the Gen 2 with 2 SATA ports and 2 ide ports you could concievably put 4 hard drives in it.