Inspiron 8600 adding additional firewire

First question, Can I add another Firewire port in the 8600? As well as a second Hard Drive @ 7200rpms?

You can get a PCMCIA to Firewire card which can add anywhere from one to four extra firewire ports simply by putting it in the PCMCIA Slot. These are available at most department stores that sell computer/ laptop stuff and also computer/ electronics stores..... not sure how much it will set you back (I know AUS prices but not others...).

You can add a second hard drive in the media bay of the i8600 (where most people usually have a CD-ROM or 2nd battery). You would need to order the hard drive caddy from Dell Spare Parts separately if you don't configure your system like this upon purchase.

Second question, If I can add a second Firewire port? Can I have that port supported by a seperate bios then the 1st Firewire port?

Not sure what you mean exactely..... a different system BIOS? That is not possible...... You should clarify what you mean by this question.

stu

Thanks, for helping me out with the information.  As to my second question about the bios.  My protool hardware is connected via firewire to my laptop.  So I have read on the Digidesign ProTools website, in their forum, that if you add an additional firewire port, (for an external firewire hard drive/which is what I plan to do), you shouldn't run Protools into one firewire port and then use another port if the two ports are supported on the same bios.  (Run on Sentence. Ha Ha)  Anyways, thanks for the info that you did give, it was helpful.