Connecting two hard drives, new Rig!.

[adkleaddog]

Ok, I FINALLY got a new rig, not the best but a LOT better than my current one, plus I got it through a great deal tha ti couldn't pass on.....

I have a i7-860 quad, 64bit, 8Gb DDR3 ram, 750watt power supply, ATI Radeon HD5770 card....1TB hard drive installed,

I have an additional 1TB drive I want to install, for FSX.

Got the power supply in and all set, the second drive is mounted, but not connected to the mother board, what's next?

I appears that I need an additional cable to do so, I DO see additional connectors on the MB, theres four in all with one going to the DVD, one from the installed drive, with "ports" three and four open?

I'm not powering this thing up till I'm satisfied it's done right!
Any help or guidance is appreciated!

V

[The Snake 87]

I am pretty sure it doesn't matter what SATA port the new hard drive has to be connected too because each drive uses its own cable unlike the IDE drives. But anyway, if you already have your SATA cable, hook up the drive and then once you boot your computer, you have to enter your BIOS. Now, I am for sure no expert at this, but you have to look through the BIOS to make sure that your system recognizes the new device (I believe you have to do this, because if I am correct when you build a computer and install and OS you have to do this.)

If you have an IDE drive, you will have to use jumpers to assign whether the new drive is the master or slave drive. With SATA you only need jumpers to lock the drive speed from 1.5 GBp/s or 3.0 GBp/s.

This link should help you

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/addin ... drive1.htm

[adkleaddog]

Thank you!

Got it connected, I had to go buy the SATA cable.

I figured I'd need to go into the BIOS to tell it which port, now the jumper for locking speed....

edit: It appears from the WD website it's shipped at a default 3Gb/s setting.

[LeeC]

When you get into Windows, you probably won't be able to see the drive. You will need to go into Disk Management and set up a partition and then format it before you can begin using it.

There are a few ways of getting to Disk Management, it depends on which OS you are using. If you have a "My Computer" or "Computer" icon on the desktop, Right-Click(on the icon)>Manage will take you to the right place. You can also get there via Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management too

[Speed of flight]

If it's all connected, and powered on, format it. Restart, go into BIOS and in your hardware list (on mine, it is called "Installed Drives", in powerup options). There should be all your CD/DVD/BD players/burners, floppys (if you got them), and HDDs. Once it is formatted, you will see it in a list of all available HDD slots your MoBo can accept. The first one on the list should be your boot drive (the HDD with your OS on it), and the next ones can be whatever order you want them in. Your PC will usually choose the primary for you. If they're the same size, it may be difficult to tell which is which. Choose wisely *echo-ey effect*. But after that, boot up and you should be good to go!

Hope this helps...

Da end.

[adkleaddog]

Thanks, I'm go to go with that, now to deal with other issues!