bsowles

 

You heard wrong, the D-2400 does support a second hard drive.

 

You will need the hard drive bracket and a three connector IDE cable.   The bracket can be purchased from here for $7.99,

http://www.centrix-intl.com/details.asp?productid=149

This option requires a three connector 80 wire IDE cable, this would be cheaper to buy from a local computer store, than online,

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/cabling/deskstar.htm

or the three connector 80 wire, 18" IDE cable can also be purchased from Centrix @ $0.39,

http://www.centrix-intl.com/details.asp?productid=2875

Or, you can buy a complete kit, from here,

http://www.issue-resolved.com/

Dell has not published instructions for installing a second IDE/EIDE hard drive in a D-2400, but as the D-4600 has the same case and chassis, you can use the same instructions for the physical installation.  A hint > Set the hard drive jumpers to "Cable Select".

After the physical installation, check the BIOS setup, that the second drive is to auto [on]  and then use XP's disk management to partition and format the drive.

These are generic instructions for installing an additional hard drive using Windows XP Disk Management, they are by Seagate, but apply to all brands,

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=How_to_install_an_additional_hard_drive_using_Windows_XP_Disk_Management&vgnextoid=2cfd04d2e817f010VgnVCM1000005106090aRCRD

To install a hard drive, larger than 120gb, then you need to be running XP-1 or XP-2.

Bev.       

 

 

 

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Thanks for your reply. That's very reassuring. I guess I should up the box up and see if it already has the cable and brackets you described. If I do get a 2nd drive, then I have to figure out out to configure things (i.e. use the current 40 gb drive as the boot drive, reinstall XP SP 2, etc.)

 

 

Pleased to have helped.   :)

 

Bev.

 

 

 

 

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So even though I have both a CR-ROM and a DVD-RW drive (2 seperate dtives) I still can install a second hard drive??

 

Thanks

bsowles

 

Yes. the D-2400 motherboard has two IDE controllers and each controller supports two IDE drives.

 

The optical drives should be connected to J20 and hard drives to J23 

 

< ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>       

 

Bev.

 

 

 

 

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So this means that even though I have 1 hard drive, one CD-ROM, 1 DVD-RW, and 1 Floppy drive I still have room (with the proper bracket) to install a second hard drive? Obviously I'm not real technically savvy!! Thanks

bsowles wrote:

So this means that even though I have 1 hard drive, one CD-ROM, 1 DVD-RW, and 1 Floppy drive I still have room (with the proper bracket) to install a second hard drive? Obviously I'm not real technically savvy!! Thanks

Yes.

 

Bev.

 

 

 

 

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Thank you so much Bev.

bsowles

 

Pleased to have helped.  :)

 

Bev.

 

 

 

 

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Pete06073

 

Ain't computers fun.   :smileyvery-happy:

 

Bev.

 

 

 

 

 

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Pete06073 wrote:
Thanks for starting this thread. I just added a second hard drive to my 2400, which came out of my old HP Pavillion (c 1999), and it works perfectly. I'll need to get the drive mounted securely, but just in hooking the wires, all's well. You do need to correctly jumper your second drive to be a "slave." Regards, Pete PS-Computers are amazing when things like this actually work!

 

Actually, the proper jumper setting for drives in your 2400 is Cable Select.

Hey Pete, glad you got up and running. I don't know much about jumper settings, but I just hooked up my second drive to J-5 and it worked fine (after I had to initialize/format on my brand new drive, with help from Bev on this forum). You mentioned not having your drive setup securely physically....do you need a mounting bracket and IDE cable? I got those real chep (under $10 I believe) from a link Bev posted for me if you need it.

 

Bill