Hi there,

I have a PC but it is quite slow and i think part of the reason is because it only has a 10GB HD, with WinXP and MS Office '03 on it there isnt much space for anything else so i was wondering if i could add another HD?

I have just been given 2 10GB HDs out of a friends old PC, they work fine so i was just wondering the following.....

1) Can i add another or 2 more HDs to my existing computer? if so how?

2) Will adding another HD make my computer any quicker?

3) will i have to format them and install the same OS as my current HD?

Thanks alot, i look forward to a reply!

1) Can i add another or 2 more HDs to my existing computer? if so how?

A standard motherboard without SATA/RAID has 4 IDE/ATA connections: Primary Master and slave and Secondary Master and slave. The main hard drive is usually the Primary Master and the CD drive is the secondary Master. This leaves 2 openings for any type of IDE/ATA device. In order to go beyond 4 in total you would need a PCI IDE controller card which would add 4 more. A board with SATA/RAID can handle many drives on its' own.

2) Will adding another HD make my computer any quicker?

10GB for XP SP2 plus Office is very limiting. So I would say any improvement in disk space will help.

3) will i have to format them and install the same OS as my current HD?

You only need one Operating System. Formatting is a good idea as long as there is no previous data on the drives that you might want. You can format thru XP under Disk Management with a single click: Format.

So in other words i could add another hard drive on primary slave??? How would i link this in with the primary master so i can access both from my desktop and use it to save to etc. so that i have one for files, mp3s etc. and use the other for programs?

any help is greatly appreciated

Adding a second drive as Primary slave is simple.

Look at the rear of the drive for the jumpers. They should be plainly labeled.

If the Master is set as Master set the second as slave. Otherwise setting both to cable select works as well. If the current Master is set to Cable Select then set the slave to Cable Select.

The cable should have a middle (grey) connector (plug). This is for the slave. If your cable lacks a middle (grey) connector then you will need to get a cable that has this setup but most do.

Boot up and everything should be fine. The next step would be to go to Disk Management: Start/Run/ diskmgmt.msc and right click the new slave and choose Format.

After this the drive will be usable.