Hopefully i have put this in the right section....

My trusty (old) pc finally died. It had 2 internal IDE hard drives, I bought a new one but can only put 2 in there... I have only 1 dvd rom connected and wondered that because it takes the same IDE would it be possible to connect my 3rd hard drive there?

External enclosures are not really an option as i already have one and besides, all available usb slots are used by various items.

So, would that theory work?

Many thanks

You can attach two IDE devices to each cable. So if your case has space, you can do it - you will also need to ensure you can run power to it. I recommend putting the HD in the Master position (opposite end from the motherboard connector) and the DVD in the slave (middle connection). Set both jumpers to CS (cable select) or the HD to MA (Master) and the DVD to SL (Slave). Do not mix CS and MA/SL on the same cable.

If your case does not have the space for an additional drive, you will need another enclosure. If short on USB ports, you will need to get something similar to this Self-powered USB Hub.

Thanks

If i set the hard drive to master would that not conflict with the master drive i am using? all i will really be using it for now is additional storage and to run programs already installed on it

The master and slave settings are for each cable. So if you have 4 drives on two cables, there will be two masters and two slaves. The system will know which is which (C drive for example) by which motherboard connection is used.

Thats great...
Thanks

You are welcome.

ive run into another problem

I have managed to get all drives in, the 2nd master (which was the one that wouldnt boot) has the most important data that i needed...

On the original pc there were several accounts for other users so i made the folder in question (my documents) inaccessable to other users... Now when I try to access the folder i keep getting the message that access is denied...

how can i get into my data?

You may have to create new accounts with those user names.

I got in by safemode as administrator and gave ownership to the new drive account

1 more thing is that the drive that was originally my slave on my old pc cant be opened, instead it says the drive has not been formatted...

could this be because there is no jumper pins in there to determine it as a slave?

If it is an IDE drive, there must be jumpers.