Start a Conversation

Unsolved

This post is more than 5 years old

4884

October 7th, 2009 18:00

Want to add 3rd SATA HD to XPS 400 with RAID 0

Just purchased a 1TB WD Caviar SATA drive.  My XPS 400 has two 150 GB HD's in a RAID 0 configuration.  I'd like to add the new 1TB HD so that I can create a dual boot (Windows 7) box, and keep my Win XP Media Center OS, data and apps.  Because of the existing HD's, there are no open slots.  I read elsewhere on the Forums that the MOBO supports up to 4 SATA HD's.  I obviously need to purchase another SATA cable.  But where to park the Caviar?  I do have a floppy drive that I NEVER use.  Could I put it there?  I know I seem like a newbie, but I did build a box about a decade ago.  It's just that this BTX case is not very flexible, although very well laid out for the current setup.  Any help, including BIOS settings, RAID 0 setup, etc., would be much appreciated. 

9 Legend

 • 

87.5K Posts

October 7th, 2009 19:00

You can place a drive where the floppy is, but you cannot add the drive to the existing RAID 0 array - it'll be a separate, standalone drive.

 

17 Posts

October 7th, 2009 21:00

Thanks for the reply ejn63.  I understand about the HDD being separate from the RAID array.  Any BIOS settings that I need to change?

10 Elder

 • 

46K Posts

October 7th, 2009 22:00

jbltort 

After the drive is installed, enter the SYSTEM SETUP and check that the SATA port the 3rd drive is connected to, is set to "Auto" [on].

After this, you need to use disk management to partition and format the hard drive and assign it a drive letter.

Bev.

17 Posts

October 8th, 2009 11:00

Thanks shesagordie.  Since I will be using the new drive for Windows 7, any recommendations for file structure?

No Events found!

Top