[Startreker]

Hi there

I am thinking of getting new HD as the one i have is getting filled up too quickly.

The drive i have at the moment is "WDC WD800AB-00CBA1" which is an IDE drive and was thinking of getting a SATA drive as was advised by someone.

my motherboard is:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/Driver_Model.aspx?ClassValue=Motherboard&ProductID=1881&ProductName=GA-K8NSC-939

and says is is ok for SATA connectors.

The connector for the power cable is differant on the SATA drive and looks like i will need an adapted which i have a link below.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=46763&DOY=search&C=SEO&U=Strat12

Is This correct?

I have a cable that i got with my motherboard which is red and has the following "Serial ATA 26AWG LIAN PENG" on the side which looks like the data cable for the SATA drive.

Also should i have any problems with the amount of HD space as some people can only see 137GB or less and if i get a bigger drive than that will i be able to see it all as i have Windows XP Pro with SP2 installed (or will install with the new drive alone)

 

[dustyjay]

With WinXP SP2 and your motherboard you should have no problem seeing the full capacity. However remember that when you buy an advertised 200Gb it will actually show up as a smaller drive because of the difference in figuring a Gigabyte between the advertizing department and what Windows will read as a Gigabyte. THe difference will not be too great though.

Also it appears that the Sata controller on that board will support Sata and not Sata2. THerefore you woul need to set the jumper on your new sata drive to force Sata1 if it is a Sata 2 DRIVE. I have had to do the same on my Gigabyte sytem. also if you purchase a retail drive instead of an OEM drive it should come with the Data cable and possibly a power connector adapter.

 

[Startreker]

Thanks for the quick reply DustyJay.

I knew that i would not be able to see the full disc but the difference would not be all that great.

I am not sure how to change the jumpers on the back of the drive, is it easy?

I was thinking of getting an OEM drive from ebuyer which will not have any cables etc will i need to get something to change the jumpers or are they the same as on the DVD-ROMS when changing from MAster to slave?

 

[dustyjay]

They are basically the same jumpers. If you do not get any installation instructions with the drives I suggest going to the drive manufacturers website and downloading the instructions. Also the data cable you have should work. My Gigabyte board came with all of these cables as well. IF your power supply does not have the Sata power connector then an adapter such as the one you linked to would work. If you give us the model and manufacturer of the drive you plan to purchase we could help see if the Sata2 jumper even exists on it.

 

[Brum]

As far as I can see you are have everything all figured out. Your motherboard does support SATA. IF you have SP2 then you should easily be able to see more than 137 GB. I'm also sure that the connector you have that came with your Motherboard is exactly what you need. Most motherboards come with a connector. You can use that Power Cable, but the Drive I recently bought also has the regular 12V connector on it. It doesn't matter which one you connect but DO NOT connect both of them. Here is a picture of my SATA WD HD.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2179837&CatId=139

I highly recommend this HDD too. Tigerdirect.com is a very good website. Although there wasn't a rebate when I bought it

I would also like to suggest that you look to see if your motherboard supports SATA-150 or SATA-300. I couldn't find it on the website you gave so I am guessing it is SATA-150. SATA-300 is supposedly faster but you won't notice any difference in speed at all. The reason I suggest this is becuase some SATA-300 drives need to be configured to run on a SATA-150 motherboard. To do this, all you have to do is place a jumper pin where the Slave/Master settings were located on the old IDE drives. It explains how to do that on the Hard Drive. Its not hard to figure out but I thought I would make sure you knew about it.

Just for the record, SATA is much easier to work with than the IDE drives.

 

[Brum]

the jumpers are the same as the DVD-Roms, escept there is no Master/Slave setting.

 

[Brum]

he he. I was a little late on my original post. didn't realize you already had a reply. I still highly recommend that drive though.

 

[Startreker]

Just going to have a look at the drive, looks good.

The drive i was looking at is in the link below:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=24446733157&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X3NwZWNpZmljYXRpb25z&product_uid=95683

But still have not completely decided.

As long as i make sure it has the power cable that is like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Molex_female_connector.jpg

then am i ok?

is it expensive for shipping to ship to the UK as most sites i buy from are UK based?

 

[dustyjay]

If that is the drive you buy then you will not need to configure the jumper.

 

[Brum]

I don't know about S&H. Try adding a drive on Tigerdirect.com and punching in your zip code or however that works. It will tell you how much S&H will be.

That particular drive you posted will work with the connector you posted. If you get that particular drive you also won't have to worry about any jumper settings becuase it is SATA-150.

 

[Startreker]

Thanks for all the info which is great.

i presume i do not need to download the Raid drivers to use when installing XP pro when asked to press F6 as i am only having 1 drive.

But if i was to add my drive i have at the moment as a 2nd drive how would i go about doing this?

 

[Brum]

There are no drivers required. Actually, you don't even have to delete your old operating system if you dont want to. Just to make things easy, I would leave your setup the way it is. (Unless of course you want to reformat XP and reinstall all the drivers and software.)

Once you have the HDD installed into the case, boot up your computer. Windows will not recognize the new HDD at first. To make windows recognize it, right click on 'My Computer' and go to 'manage'. In the window that pops up, click on 'Disk Management' under 'storage' on the left side of the window. On the bottom half of the window, find your new drive. Right click on the unallocated space and select 'New Partition...' Now simply use the Wizard to partition the drive how you want it. Most likely you will want to create a primary partition using all of the disk space.

There is a couple more recomendations I would like to make, but neither of these are nesecary unless you want to mess with it.

If you decide to set up your computer the way I specified, I would create a reference to the 'My Documents' Folder. This will move everything in the 'My Documents' folder onto the second HDD and when you save something to 'My Documents' it will be saved onto the second HDD. To do this simply right click on the 'My Documents' folder and select 'properties'. Now click the 'Move' button and select your new hard drive. It might take a little while to move all the information.

Also, I would change the Page File location. By putting the page file on HDD without your system files, your computer will be able to pull information from the page file faster becuase that particular disc is used less. Like I said though, neither of those need to be done, but they might make things a little easier for you.

 

[Startreker]

Thanks for the reply BRUM

That is good info

Will maybe think about that but what i was really wanting was a fresh install on the new drive are these the correct instructions about doing:

1. replace the drive that is in the machine at the moment. If i was thinking of the drive i saw in a prev post (WD 400GB) then is should have the same data/power ports that i have at the moment.
2. turn on the machine at BIOS press del (i think) and change the bios to see the SATA drive and the boot order to boot from the CD.
3. restart with the winXP disc in the drive and install XP as normal (it should see the drive ok without any added drivers)

Does this seem ok!!!

If i wanted to add the IDE drive i have at moment as a backup drive just keep it in or will it need to be setup differently (I would likely wipe it and start a fresh).

 

[Brum]

Your right. Its not too complicated.

1. Just (physically) install the the SATA drive. You shouldn't have to remove the old one at all.

2. Checking the bios is a good idea though. Most machines are 'Del' but if yours isn't it will say when you first start it up. My machine has the option to turn off SATA connections but most likely the defualt is the have it on. The defualt is also usually set to boot from the CD-ROM before the HDD but that is also worth checking too.

3. Your right. Restart with the WinXP disc in the drive and istall XP as normal (it won't need any extra drivers, the winXP disc should have the drivers on the disc already for you.)

4.
a)To wipe the old one fresh, you will come to a screen where you have the option to select which partition to install windows on. It will also give you the options to Delete or create a partition. To wipe the old drive clean, all you have to do is delete it. (It is really self explanitory, I doubt you'll need a step by step.)

b) If you want to get information off of your old drive, you can wait to delete it after you have installed windows. Once you have move all your information to the new drive. Simply go into Disk Management (like I described earlier) and delete it. Just simply right click on the old disk, in the bottom right portion of the window, under the blue line, and select 'Delete Partition...'

5. Once you have both windows set up and deleted your old drive, Go back to disk management. All you have to do is format the partition (like I explained earlier).

Hope that explains it for ya... I tend to make some things really clear to understand and others not so clear.

P.S. Just another recomendation... (something that you don't have to do but you can think about)

I did the same thing about 5 months ago, but instead of leaveing the old drive into my computer. I bought an external USB HDD case. I absolutely love it, becuase it is like having an 80 GB Flash Drive. The only downside is you have to have a plug in to power it up. Just thought I would mention that.

 

[Brum]

Opps about forgot....

Yes you do have the right power/connection cables if you described them right. (i believe you have the regular 12V connector and not the SATA power connector) Just DO NOT install both the 12v power cable and the SATA power cable. Only install one of them. (I just wanna make sure you know that.) The SATA version of the power cable is suppost to 'save power' but it won't make that much of a difference. Also, No need to worry about any Jumper settings.

 

[Brum]

errrrr, wrong button

 

[Startreker]

Thanks for the instructions Drum

They look very clear to me, I have formatted my machine and installed windows XP loads of times so i know what most of the screens are and the screen for partitioning and hopefully the PC will recognise the new drive..

I am not completely 100% on the BIOS side and will have a good look to check the next time i reboot.

If i install windows on the new drive (with windows still existing on the old one) will there be any conflict or asking to boot up with both windows?

Like the idea of the USB HDD but as you mentioned it has to be powered and probably cannot boot from it.

I will probably buy a drive that has the 12v power cable as i think that is what i use at the moment but could check that out when i open my machine again. but will not use both!!!!!!!!

 

[Brum]

If i install windows on the new drive (with windows still existing on the old one) will there be any conflict or asking to boot up with both windows?

Yes there will be a slight "conflict." Before windows boots, it will simply ask you which operating system to boot from. I can't exactly tell you which one will be the 'new' operating system (bad memory), but my guess is that your new HDD will be the second OS listed. Some bios might also be set up to ask you which HDD to boot from. Either way, all you have to do is choose the operating system on your new Hard Drive. To make sure you picked the right one just look to see which HDD is labeled C. Windows will make the system partition (the partition it is running on) the C drive. (99% of the time anyways. There are ways to fool it.)

 

[Brum]

Like the idea of the USB HDD but as you mentioned it has to be powered and probably cannot boot from it.

Most computers can't boot from a USB drive. Even if your computer can boot from the USB drive, there is absolutely no way to format windows through the USB. You would have to pull it out of the case and put it back into the computer to format it. Also you could (most likely) only boot your own computer if you did put windows on it and tried to boot from it. All it would be like is one really big flash drive with a power cable.

I will probably buy a drive that has the 12v power cable as i think that is what i use at the moment but could check that out when i open my machine again. but will not use both!!!!!!!!

The drive you showed had both power connectors, so you should be fine.

 

[Startreker]

Thanks have just bought the WD4000KD drive and just had it delivered.

It is something to look forward to when i get home from work. Hopefully it will al go through smoothly and will follow the instructions that i was given on this forum.


PS.. I have just installed the drive but have no screws at the moment to secure it in. It is sitting on top of the Floppy drive but pushed in.

the bios recognised the drive and windows now does and am in the middle of formatting it. It started at 7:10pm and is now at 75% after 1 and a half hours of formatting. (I can only see 372.61Gb but expected to lose a little.

Thanks

Startreker