Hard Drive Installation

[siratfus]

I have a DELL XPS GEN5 Desktop.

I am a newbie when it comes to opening up the computer and stuff. I don't understand words like registry adn bios. Having said that, i heard it's not rocket science to add a second hard drive. I don't understand Raid and I don't think I care for it. All I want to do is add a second hard drive for more storage. I've opened up the console and saw that there are only sata connectors. I'm planning to buy a 300gb sata150 from newegg. Once I plug it in, will there be some program that will guide me through? I would appreciate any info. If someone could write a step by step guide that would be great or any tips, advice, look-outs, that would be very appreciated. Thanx in advance!

[redwudz]

There's really not much to it. Mount it the same as your other hard drive. Plug in the power and SATA cables. Turn on the computer. It should recognize the new drive and ask if you want it formatted. You do that and you are done.

If the computer doesn't recognize the HD, Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management and you should see the drive there. Right click on your drive and choose format.

If still no, get back to us for further aid.

[waheed]

You shouldn't really have a problem with SATA as it is plug and play. Windows XP should recognise it straight away, even if your install the hard drive while your PC is already on and booted up.

[handyguy]

Do satas have master/slave settings?

[waheed]

Nope. Thats the benefit of SATA, it does away with jumper settings, so no worry about master/slave settings.

[lumis]

there is no bios setup required for sata hdd's? it's not that complicated, but it's something that needs to be done with most computers for ide hdd's.

[thevoelk]

From my Dell experience, you will have to go into the BIOS. What you want to do is pay attntion to the SAT port number on your mainboard that you plug the SATA cable into. Make a note of the number and when you turn on your computer, you'll have to hit F2 to go into BIOS. Look for the section Onboard devices and go into it. It should have the SATA controllers listed as SATA 0, SATA 1, etc, and will list their state next to it, either On or Off. My Precision 370 at work has SATA 0 an 2 next to each other, and 1 and 3 next to each other. After you turn the correct SATA port on, then go into Windows Disk Management and you should automatically have the Disk Intialization Wizard start.

[handyguy]

"Nope. Thats the benefit of SATA, it does away with jumper settings, so no worry about master/slave settings."

How does it know which one you want it to boot from?

[lumis]

i'm guessing SATA 0 would be the boot hdd

[waheed]

How does it know which one you want it to boot from?

You can boot from any SATA drive you want. It is set up to boot from the first SATA drive by default (or the drive with the OS), but can be changed in the BIOS.