how to install second hard drive

Question

I have a brand new inspiron 580 with a 320 GB HD.  I want to add my almost new Western Digital 640GB SATA drive as a second hard drive. I cannot find any instructions for how to do this in the online documentation for this product line, or anything close that is detailed, systematic, and step by step. Is there a DIY section that I'm overlooking? The manual tells you how to open the cover and disassemble the primary drive but is silent on the issue of adding an additional one. Unless I am missing something. I've swapped drives before,  but never added a component.

shesagordie · Answer

Oili Is your inspiron 580, the Mini Tower, or the Slimline version? Bev.

shesagordie · Answer

Oili

Instructions for installing a second hard drive in the Inspiron 580 Mini tower are not available, as they have not been published by Dell, but as the Inspiron 530 has the same chassis, you can use the same instructions for the physical installation of the additional SATA hard drive.

See HERE.<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed / replaced from this post by Dell>

The Inspiron 850 Mini tower Service Manual is HERE<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed / replaced from this post by Dell>

You will need a SATA data cable there should be a spare SATA power connector inside the case.

After installing the drive enter the system setup and check that the hard drive is 'enabled' [on] and recognized.

Details of 580 system setup are HERE.<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed / replaced from this post by Dell>

For Windows 7 to recognize the second hard drive, it must be partitioned and formatted.

Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management, right click new drive, select format, then you can assign a drive letter.

Bev.

Ps. The Inspiron 580 Slimline model does support two 3.5" SATA hard drives. :emotion-5:

Oili · Answer

This is the tower. Big box! Has room for 2 internal hard drives (unlike the slim version) Oili

Oili · Answer

Wow, that is terrific news.  I appreciate being corrected about the slimline; I hate to spread misinformation. As soon as i have been able to review these links and feel i can do the work, i will let you know how it goes.  Thank you very much for your support.

shesagordie · Answer

Oili You are welcome. Good luck with the upgrade. Bev.

shesagordie · Answer

Grant2  Does the hard drive you are trying to install, have any issues? Also, it helps to include the computer model and the version of windows that's installed. Bev.

Grant2 · Answer

I tried the upgrade with a second SATA drive with data on it. There is an immediate error and F2 optioin taakes me to the Bios settings. The hard drive is recognized but cannot be configured to work (so Far) I dont want to lose the data so may have to figure a way to down loadit from my old computer with a failinf ha\c:drive. Any ideas

Grant2 · Answer

The computer that the hard drive was in has no model, I think it was a kit but worked well. The hard drive I want to reuse is a seagate 320G and has no issues. As said I do not want to lose the data so I do not want to format it. Hope someone has an easy (bad word) solution

Grant2 · Answer

OOps, the old OS is windows XP home and the new OS is wnn7 64 bit

shesagordie · Answer

Grant2

I've found using an USB adaptor similar to THIS and attaching the hard drive to a USB port of a Wndows 7 system, the better procedure for transfering the files and folders you need, to the new PC.

Bev.

Grant2 · Answer

Thaanks, I now have one one order...

shesagordie · Answer

Grant2  :emotion-21: Bev.

deeandess · Answer

I have carried out the above procedure to add a 320 gb hard drive and I have installed win xp on this drive but I can't find the drivers for the wired network nor for a bunch of other equipment on my Inspiron 580. any help would be appreciated.

deeandess

shesagordie · Answer

deeandess

Dell does not support XP for the Inspiron 580, only 32-bit Vista and 64-bit Win7 is supported, therefore there are no XP drivers available from Dell.

You could try Broadcom's website, to see if they have a Network driver available.

Bev.

deeandess · Answer

Thanks for your responce. I have spent most of the day working on this problem and so far I have discovered that the Vista 32 bit drivers have got the network and internet working and also the videa graphics card seems to be working ok.

The Device Manager Now shows the following items as having no drivers and I don't know what these items are so I don't know what Vista 32 drivers to download and try in case these would get things working..

It would be very helpfull if you could throw any further light on this.

deeandess

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how to install second hard drive

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