I have an old Gateway 500 SE (5-6) years old. I have an extra hard drive lying around and I'm wondering how to know if my Gateway can have 2 hard drive install at the same time.

I am sure it can. There are two connections on most all IDE cables.

The only question is whether or not there is a second slot inside to install it.

http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/2800071/2800071nv.shtml

Hard Drive Interface Internal to core logic(Super South bridge)
Support up to 4 IDE devices
Use 2 shrouded IDE connectors
Support for DMA modes 1, 2 (bus mastering), and Ultra-DMA33
Bus mastering support
Designed to ATA 4 specification

You need to open the case and look for an additional mounting bay.

If not then you can use it externally in a USB case.

I have it opened up right now and there appears to be an open slot below the existing hard drive. My extra drive is a SAMSUNG SP1203N 120 gb Hard Drive. Will my power supply be able to handle this? If so, how do utilize the drive once it is installed? Does it just appear as letter drive under MY Computer? Thanks.

First off verify the "jumpers".

These are little plastic encased "gizmos" on the rear of the drive.

If your main drive is set to Master then set this add-on to slave.

If your main drive is set to Cable Select then set the add-on to Cable Select.

The cable to the main drive should have a middle grey connector for the slave.

Once installed you need to go to Disk Management and right click the new drive and choose Format... > NTFS

It will then appear under My Computer and be ready to use.

Disk Management is found by right clicking My Computer then click Manage then Disk Management.

The additional power should not be a problem. You will need a power line (molex) connector. If one is not free you can get a "splitter" for a few dollars at any electronics store.

Hmm. I couldn't wait and went ahead and plugged it in. I just plugged in the wide connector with the wide wire (there was one extra one) and one of the unused power connectors and booted up. It shows up under My Computer. Am I gonna get into trouble here, because I didn't any of the things you just mentioned in your last post? ???

If it works it works.

It might have been a slave and it might already have been formatted etc.

Should be no problem.

Well, it works but chkdsk runs on it every single time I boot, and it runs for a good 5-10 minutes. There are severe errors on this hard drive. Is there any way to repair it? Software that reallocates the bad parts or something?

Try running Check Disk:

Go to start Run... and type: cmd

Then type: chkdsk /r

You will be told the volume is in use do you want to run chkdsk on next boot? Type: Y and reboot.


You can also get a diagnostic tool from the hard drive manufacturers web site.