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Add second hard drive to Dell Inspiron 530?
I see that I have a second bracket for a hard drive in the computer. I'd like to add a second hard drive, a 1TB Western Digital Caviar GP WD10EACS Hard Drive.
I have: Dell Inspiron 530
BIOS version 1.0.12
System came with a 500 GB E-SATA drive which I'll keep as the primary drive.
OS: Vista service pack 1
Can I just connect a new hard drive or will I need to install a new card for the second E-SATA drive? Is there a connection in the system just waiting for me to connect a second hard drive to it?
I've installed hard drives before, but not in this Dell and not under Vista. I'm not seeing an obvious connection to plug in the data cable from the drive to.
RobinBredin
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November 28th, 2008 11:00
Hi rpmrpm, Connecting up an new HD in an Inspiron is easy. You will need an SATA data cable, you will have two empty SATA connectors on your mobo, the power cable is already there. After you put the drive in, press F2 at the Dell boot screen, scroll down to your drive, hit enter to enable it, save changes and bootup. After you bootup Press Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management, Right click on Drive, Select format, After format select drive letter. PS The latest BIOS is 1.0.15 for the Inspiron.
rpmrpm
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November 28th, 2008 12:00
Thanks. The hard drive is a SATA II drive. So I think I need a SATA II cable for it. Is that the same as an eSATA cable?
RobinBredin
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November 28th, 2008 12:00
Hi rpmrpm, SATAll or eSATA use the same type of Data cable. Good Luck.
RobinBredin
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October 15th, 2009 03:00
Hi Have you looked at this post HERE.
jdgale
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October 15th, 2009 03:00
Hi RobinBredin
I wonder if you could go a stage further. I am also trying to add a second hard drive, with this added complication; I want to use the drive from my old computer, but it is an IDE rather than a SATA drive. I have bought an IDE/SATA adapter, changed the jumper pins so that my old drive is seen as Slave rather than Master, gone through the BIOS setup as you describe and rebooted. However, my computer does not see the new drive, although the BIOS does seem to be trying to pick it up. If I revert the jumpers to Master and substitute it for the current drive, it does register and begins the boot process - it doesn't get very far, of course, because the configurations of my old and new machines are very different, but the computer can at least see it.
The conclusion I come to, possibly wrongly, is that there is a configuration issue I haven't picked up on. Any thoughts, please?
The current HDD is a 500 GB Samsung HD501LJ SATA in HD0 and the machine is a Dell Inspiron 530 running Windows Vista Premium SP2. The HDD I am trying to put in is a 250 GB Hitachi Deskstar HDT7250. The adapter is a standard part bought from a reputable supplier, although I'm not sure about the manufacturer and part no; as is so often the case with such devices, there is a whole load of codes which don't have any clear significance. As described above, however, it seems to work, but not in the configuration I have at present.
What I have picked up on the web on the Samsung HD501LJ regarding the use or otherwise of the jumpers is contradictory, some of the advice being that there is no need for the use of a jumper at all. Fiddling around with the limited range of options doesn't seem to help.