how to install 2nd hard drive

this is what I would do

1) check whether your bios supports the size hard drive you bought at dell support
2) if you have backed up all your data, just format (instructions present on dell site for formatting) your old hard drive and
install it as slave
install the new drive as master (set jumper settings on the backs of drive)
3) install the Operating System onto the new drive - you want to have the speed of
the new drive
installing the Operating system is easy if it's windows, should be some info
on this on the dell site and the web
4) don't give up, legwork/trial&error s.u.c.k.s but that's how computer upgrades work

If your bios does not support your new hard drive size then you will either have to
boot on your old drive and use the new one as a slave (no need to reinstall OS) or
use an IDE controller card which I don't recommend since they are problematic in general
hope this helps

if you bought your new hard drive from dell, call their lazy a.s.s tech support
on the phone and don't let them hang up
they train their people to stay on the phone as little as possible

Hey George,

Thanks a lot! Your method actually makes some sense to me.  I like the idea of starting off the new drive as the master to begin with.  And yes, I'm quite certain the "BIOS" (sorry, not exactly certain what that is--something "input/output system"?) supports the size of my new drive, which is 80 Gb.  I remember stumbling onto some info that I couldn't go beyond that and which is why Dell's site kept it limited to that size as well for my four-yr-old computer. 

Anyway, I'll give this a try tomorrow night and see how it goes.  My operating system, by the way, is Windows 98 second edition if that adds any more pieces to the puzzle.  I'm pretty timid about all this "formatting" and "partitioning" business, but I suppose they're just the kinds of concepts you don't get until you get into the trenches. 

So definitely set the new drive to master and old to slave?  (I got thrown off earlier today when I saw a post that said all Dells are configured for "Cable Select" and to just set both drives on CS, and everything's ready.  First I'd heard that one... ???)

Anyway, thanks again for the help and keeping it simple--really appreciate it an awful lot--and the encouragement as well.  Need all I can get at this point.  I'll let ya know how things go...    Dan

check in the downloads section to see if there is a bios flash to accomodate larger hdd's, basically make sure you have the latest available. anyways you leave the jumper settings for boths hdd's in cable select position. then you plug in the drive you want to be the master and old the slave. make sure you have all your software disks before doing this, you will need to reinstall your programs but can transfer the data over easily. also every dell system has documentation, go to the tabs at the top go to reference > user guides > systems > then pick yours which is dimension xps t___ (it wont actually denoate a number as there were diff processor speeds) there you will be linked on how to reinstall, add, remove parts, etc.

1st of all sorry about messing up your names.  In the above two posts "Dan" should have referred to "dfk68"

Now, Dan39, I also have a question.  I bought a 120 Gb hard drive thinking I would use an ata 133 controller, but those are too bugy in Linux, so I will avoid using it.  My BIOS supports 80 Gb, so I will just use the IDE controller from the motherboard and use the 80 Gb of space that the IDE controller sees.  Will there be a performance or reliability issue with using just the 2/3 of the hard drive the controller recognizes?  I am afraid to flash my bios, because it could cause the mobo to get messed up.  Besides as of now I will not be using more than 80 Gb. 

Also, my mobo supports ATA66.  My new hard drive will be an ATA133.  I know the drives are backward compatible, but this raises the following issue.  You know that the sustained rates of ATA133 are less than 66 from the magnetic disk.  It's the cache of the hard drive that reaches 133.  Now does the backward compatible thing slow down my sustained rates?  Thanks, I know this last one is a tough one.

Vili

Dan,

Setting the jumpers should work either way.  If Dell recommends using cable select, just follow the instructions they give for that.  However if cable select does not work the compy should be able to recognize master / slave jumper settings. 

I definitely do recommend setting the new hard drive as master though.  Even with cable select, if you plug in your new hard drive to the long end of the ribbon cable the machine will recognize that new hard drive as the master.  Check out my attempt at the ide ribbon cable diagram below.  The "----------" are the cable, the "||" are the connector yoiu plug into your mother board, slave device (could be a hard drive CD, or ZIP). 

 

mother board                                                                   slave device        master hard drive

||-----------------------------------------------------------------------------||-------------------||                                                         ||-----------------------------------------------------------------------------||-------------------||                                                         ||-----------------------------------------------------------------------------||-------------------||                                                         ||-----------------------------------------------------------------------------||-------------------||

 

 

Dan, sorry, when I submitted, the site messed up the formatting of my "diagram".  Here is a simplified version.

mother board                                                                   slave device        master hard drive

||-----------------------------------------------------------------------------||-------------------||

 

All the other lines were just an attempt from me to make the cable look wider...  Now what should be a ribbon of 40 wires looks like a single line.  I hope this helps.

George

you could use the 120 if you still have it, just partition multiple drives, break it up, 20,40,60, etc or however you want. have the os one partition, data like music on another. ata66 will be a bit slower but the larger cache on the new hdd, 8mb i imagine, should keep a steady flow of data flowing so its not a big deal. its that difficult to do a flash bios. you might want to look into partition magic.

for future reference always just buy retail from an different vendor. you wouldve gotten all the disks and instructions from the seagate drive had you bought it retail elsewhere. im glad you have it all working now.

(sorry about that--premature post)..

determined to accommodate.

2)  No instructions whatsoever come with the hard drive, like the fact that the manufacturer of the new hd Seagate has a website you need to go to to download their DiscWizard and create a floppy to hold your hand all the way through the installation process and will even help make decisions for you based on its ability to determine what hard drive already exists in your machine and what one you're about to put in.  Not to mention that the DiscWizard will automatically "format" and "partition" both drives for you and transfer over data from the old drive to the new by using "Cable Select", not Master and Slave jumper settings.

3)  It was really that simple, but since Dell didn't bother telling me with a little notey or something, I had to waste a lot of time figuring all this out for myself and worrying about possibly having to perform functions I was not at all comfortable with and which a lot of folks are probably not comfortable with.  Do ya see how much this sukks, Dell?  Maybe rethink your lame hardware shipping policies and at least include a friggin' post-it note that says, "here's your stuff.  now go to so and so's website, and THEY'll be decent enough to provide you with the instructions, wizard, whatever."  Is that too much to ask?

Thanks again George and Dan.  Your info was really helpful.  In fact, that was my next minor challenge--how to make the new drive the boot drive, and thanks to you, I think I've now got the answer now that Windows and a lot of other stuff successfully transferred over, about a three-hour process.   And sorry about the rant on Dell, but this is the exact sort of treatment  consumers should not tolerate. 

Can't thank you enough,  Dan (dfk68) 

Thanks George and Dan for all your help with this! I actually went ahead with this project last night, and it appears to have been a success.  Here's what I did, just in case anyone else out there has a similar set of circumstances as mine and is not so much geared towards computers so much as using them--what is that?.. about 80% of us?

1)  Dell sends a hard drive already which system has already been   determined

Thanks George and Dan for all your help with this! I actually went ahead with this project last night, and it appears to have been a success.  Here's what I did, just in case anyone else out there has a similar set of circumstances as mine and is not so much geared towards computers so much as using them--what is that?.. about 80% of us?

1)  Dell sends a hard drive already which system has already been  determined

Forums rock!  It's really a bunch of people helping each other who are in the same boat with processors and hard drives in the hull. 

Thanks dan39 for your advice with partitioning.  I think I will have a 75 Gb partition of Windows 2000 and a 45 Gb of Slackware 9.1.  Now I must go to the Linuxquestions.org forum whether that will work and whether I can boot onto the second logical drive, ie linux.  Thanks again Dan.

Dfk68, I am happy that you resolved your problems.  I am only preparing for my install, but by the time the hard drive ships, I should figure it all out.  Now, for future reference, I would find out what Dell sells for hard drives, i.e. what is supported, then go to www.pricewatch.com and get the same thing cheaper.  Except you must watch the ratings of each online store.

Peace

George