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Author Topic: How do I attach a slave harddrive  (Read 2206 times)

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Elise0511

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How do I attach a slave harddrive
« on: November 06, 2005, 03:58:19 PM »
Hi, I'm the hopeless one with the dead motherboard. That computer has two harddrives that I've used as a main and backup using "Ghost" software. Unfortunately, I have a lot of software on that drive, including my Rocket Librarian, many of my unfinished novel manuscripts, my screenplay and most of my quilt business artwork. With no motherboard I can't get to that material, and some of it is irreplaceable.

There is nothing wrong with either harddrive. Both are working just fine. It was suggested that I take the primary harddrive out of the dead computer and make it a slave drive to my working Pentium III desktop.

I don't know how to do that--or even if the harddrive will fit in the tower anywhere except sitting on the tower floor.

Does anyone know how to attach a harddrive and designate it as a slave? I'm not in a position to buy a new computer system and get a data dump right now, and I'm concerned that offloading the data onto CD's will affect the operation of the software.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Elise in Lynchburg, Virginia

GX1_Man

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Re: How do I attach a slave harddrive
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2005, 04:04:18 PM »
Look here for some info:

http://www.computerhope.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=3;action=display;num=1131309353

I don't know that the programs will run wince Windows will not have the files it needs in the right places (I'm assuming these are Windows programs). The data files should be no problem. You just have to have them jumpered correctly and make sure they are recognized in the BIOS.

Read that post and let us know.

dl65

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    Re: How do I attach a slave harddrive
    « Reply #2 on: November 06, 2005, 04:19:10 PM »
    Elise0511....... If you open up the old pc (P3 ) ........there should be room under the existing hard drive to install the one which contains your treasured stuff ......... on the rear of your old hard drive you will see a place for a large connector to plug in .........a smaller place where the 4 pin power plug goes and ........ a spot where you should see 8 small pins ,with a jumper on 2 of them .......You need to set this jumper to the slave position... Look on the top of the drive and it should tell you where to place the jumpers ........your options should be ....... Cable select , Master and Slave . You want the jumper to be set as Slave on the drive you are adding and the jumpers on the existing drive to be set as Master ....... There should be a wide flat cable running from the Mother board to the rear of the existing hard drive ...... This wide cable  ........ will have a plug on either end and one in the middle. You want to plug the centre plug into the rear of the drive you are installing...... (it may be keyed so it can only be put in one way ) however if it isnt , there should be a stripe , iether red or black on one edge of the wide cable .......that indicates pin # 1 and it should be plugged in so the stripe is towards the 4 pinned power plug.   You should also find some unused 4 pinned plugs which will fit the new hard drive .....Plug one into the rear of it and you are done ....... Note use the 4 screws that you removed when you took it new drive out of the old pc .........to fasten the added drive .

    A word of caution .......be sure you have the power turned off to the tower of the pc you are going to install the new hard drive into ......and remember to ground youself to drain off any static buildup .( touch you finger to any grounded part of the computer case .)

    dl65  ::)
    If you don't know the answer, it isn't a dumb question.