[Tony]

HI,
I'm getting a larger hd to replace the one I have. I have a problem though. My old hd is all screwed up, and I have a lot of files that I don't want to lose. Obviously, I have to remove the old hd in order to connect the new with a controller pci card. Is there a way after installing the new one, that I can get some of those important files from the old one? I have a burner, but right now it can't work with my screwed up system, so i can't burn any that way. If it did, then I would not have this problem. BTW, the tech told me that my new controller card is good for 4 hd's. I don't understand that theory, and he wasn't very good, or I was too dense to understand what he was saying. Any clues with my predictument? Thanks

 

[DJ Specs]

First, how old is your system? Is the only hard drive you have, connected to a PCI Card? I cant see that. Tell us a bit more about the actual hardware in your machine.

 

[Tony]

New hd

I bought it in august 1998. No my old hd is not connected to a pci card. There is no room for 2 hd's.The reason I'm getting a pci card is because my bios is limited, I could only use more gig's with a pci card. Bios cannot be upgraded. I have win98, P3 500mhz and 192 mb of ram. Thanks

 

[Doonz]

Honestly the amount of time and $$ you are spending on solveing a problem to revived a 5 year old system is worth it only of it is a throw away ...spend 899 and get a Dell ...then slave the second drive

 

[Tony]

To Doonz,
That would of been the obvious choice, buy another unit..the problem is I don't have $800 to spare on another computer. Maybe if I had your income, I would consider it. I came here for assistance, I know this is a volunteer area, but remarks like buy a new one, don't cut it for some of us.

 

[TheTechIsIn]

Welcome,

What he was probably saying is that you will have 2 IDE channels to which you can connect up to 4 IDE devices. (Each IDE cable can connect up to 2 IDE devices) So you could have 4 HD if you have no CDROM.

Anyway to use your new drive and your old drive @ the same time connect them in the following way.

IDE Channel 1 = Get an IDE able with 2 places to connect IDE devices plus 1 more to plug into the mobo/controller card. Plug it into both your HD's and then to your new controller cards IDE0 plug. Set the new hard drive as Master and the old one as Slave.

IDE Channel 2 = Connect to your CDROM (Set as master) and the other end to your controllers card IDE1 plug.

You'll have to reinstall the OS, however all your files will still be on your other harddrive, it will most likely be automatically assigned as drive letter (D) during the OS reinstall. After the installs complete you can transfer files back and forth between the drives.

 

[Tony]

What he was probably saying is that you will have 2 IDE channels to which you can connect up to 4 IDE devices. (Each IDE cable can connect up to 2 IDE devices) So you could have 4 HD if you have no CDROM. >>>

Unfortunately, that is not what I read in his comment. That said, maybe I didn't make myself clear about the cd rom. The reason I couldn't use it, was because of my situation I would of had to reinstall the drivers and software for it, and my system at that time it couldn't be done. Now, I've installed the new hard drive with a controller card and all is well. But I did want to connect my old drive as a slave, so I would be able to copy my vital files that were on that drive to my new drive. I"m not interested in attaching anything other than my 2nd drive. Thank you for clarifying it.