Using old IDE HD as a Slave

[artbuc]

I will be replacing a failing HardDrive on an ancient  HP Pavilion 753n. This rig has a floppy disk drive which of course is not used. Could I replace the floppy with the old HD and set it up as a slave? I am not sure how much longer it will live but it would make for convenient storage for as long as it lasts. Thanks.

[Geek-9pm]

Yes, if you can do the mechanical thing. The screws holes might not line up. But you might try using cardboard and glue. Go easy  on the glue.
The first drive is to be set as master, the second as slave. And check the BIOS to see if both are found by the BIOS.

[artbuc]

Yes, if you can do the mechanical thing. The screws holes might not line up. But you might try using cardboard and glue. Go easy  on the glue.
The first drive is to be set as master, the second as slave. And check the BIOS to see if both are found by the BIOS.

Thanks but I actually prefer chewing gum and paper clips, lol! I have read that the master should be at the end of the IDE ribbon. Does this ring true to you?

[Geek-9pm]

Yes, if you have that kind of cable. In that case is is called 'cable select' and you do not use the master and slave jumpers. Plain old flat cable requires you to use the jumpers.

Here is a link the explains the 'cable select' thing.
http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/c/cablsele.htm
It uses a special cable. Not needed for older systems.

Tip: If a drive is not detected while using cable select, try setting one drive to Master and the other to Slave, instead of using cable select. If after changing the jumpers, the drive is still not detected, it's likely a bad drive.

Any questions?

[patio]

I will be replacing a failing HardDrive on an ancient  HP Pavilion 753n. This rig has a floppy disk drive which of course is not used. Could I replace the floppy with the old HD and set it up as a slave? I am not sure how much longer it will live but it would make for convenient storage for as long as it lasts. Thanks.

You can mount the spare HDD in a HDD bay...no need to put it where the floppy resides...
Also do NOT use the floppy IDE cable as they are reversed for floppy functions...buy a new IDE cable....82 pin.

[patio]

P.S.   Don't trust it to any valuable data...

[artbuc]

You can mount the spare HDD in a HDD bay...no need to put it where the floppy resides...
Also do NOT use the floppy IDE cable as they are reversed for floppy functions...buy a new IDE cable....82 pin.

No extra bays. Starting to think this is not such a good idea. Definitely taking two steps forward and three steps backwards on this mission.

I did not look at the cable very closely other than to note the floppy and HD are connected to the same ribbon cable.

[Computer_Commando]

You can mount the spare HDD in a HDD bay...no need to put it where the floppy resides...
Also do NOT use the floppy IDE cable as they are reversed for floppy functions...buy a new IDE cable....82 pin.

FDD cable is 34-pins; IDE is 40-pins.  You know you know this.
http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/f/flopcabl.htm

[Geek-9pm]

[artbuc]

Thanks.... think I understand. Will check out cable when I get to the PC. The MB has two IDE connectors (primary and secondary) and one FDD connector:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=bph07843&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=90390

I am probably wrong about the floppy and HD using the same ribbon. More likely the two ribbons were just smooshed together.

Here is another good explanation:

http://www.kitchentablecomputers.com/drcables1.php

[artbuc]

Installed new WD 160GB IDE HD. The ribbon cable is labeled master (end connector) and slave (middle connector). The floppy ribbon cable is completely separate. The old HD was a Seagate and was jumpered for Cable Select. The WD install instructions said no jumper was needed if were a single drive or master. However, I jumpered WD the Cable Select pins to mimic the Seagate. Did I screw up? Maybe it does not make any difference if I have the CS jumpered or not as long as the drive is single and connected to the master connector? Thanks.

[soybean]

Something you might keep in mind regarding use of IDE drives; you can buy external enclosures to put them in, thereby creating an external USB drive.

[patio]

CS is fine...if you add another HDD then adjust the jumpers on each accordingly...

MBoard==============================slave=======Master.

[DaveLembke]

I am not sure how much longer it will live but it would make for convenient storage for as long as it lasts.

My suggestion to this is instead of using a drive that you know is on its last leg, buy a cheap used healthy drive and use that instead.

I have been able to pick up drives that are 120GB to 320GB used for around $12 with shipping included in the price.

My daughters system needed a drive because she was running on just a 40GB IDE drive and with Windows XP SP3 ( around 9 GB ) + World of Warcraft ( 25GB ) + 1.5GB swap(paging), 35.5GB was gone of the 37 GB that was available leaving 1.5GB free.  I was able to buy a Seagate 120GB IDE HDD as a reconditioned drive off of www.newegg.com for $12 with free shipping and it came with a 90 day warranty. The drive I bought over a year ago and its used daily in her system and have run flawlessly, and has no errors in the SMART log, although it has 32,000 run hours on it and 6700 boots.

 I'd trust this used 120GB better than a known troubled drive for data storage. Using troubled drives I learned long ago was not worth the headache. I have been bitten before by using drives that I knew were acting up and on their way out = total data loss in my Pentium II 450Mhz. I was 3/4 way through this game and surprise the one day I went to play Diablo II and it errored out and then started to clunk. *** I shouldnt have used this drive that I knew had a bad sector count of 34. I assumed that the drive would work around this bad area of 34 bad sectors and  the drive continued to fail slowly eventually sectors dying in important areas of the drive that the game resided.

Here is the monster sized BigFoot 4.3GB that I pulled from an old Acer 200Mhz Pentium 1 and had a total data loss with... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Bigfoot_%28hard_drive%29

Here is a drive for $21.99 with free shipping and 1 year warranty. They have cheaper drives available as well. This is best I found for cheap + warranty. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5AD1R99103&cm_re=IDE_hard_drive-_-9SIA5AD1R99103-_-Product