Disk space dwindling! I must add a drive! But HOW?

[ExAm]

Self-explanatory. My hard drive is a 60GB Western Digital, cannibalized from an old PC. There are several more hard drives in this house. I think I might be able to find one that isn't a maxxtor, and has enough space.

So, the question is. How do I shot add drive and put shit on it? Halp! I have about 5GB of space left!

[k4is3rxkh40s]

With mine, I just put it in and then installed the drivers and etc. So if its from another computer youre probably just gonna have to find the drivers for it

[Limited]

Is that western digital the only one currently? I would also like to know what you do when you have a new hard disk. I have 2 right now, ones only 18GB though (secondary) and I really need to change it to like 250GB one. Is it just as simple as plugging it in?

You have to "pair" them I think some how, making it a slave/secondary drive.

Sorry cant be any more help exam, I'd like to know myself :D

[mR_r0b0to]

SATA HDDs are plug and play, i believe, so all you have to do is plug them in.
As for those massively huge flat cable type hard drive thingies that block airflow, I dunno.

[ExAm]

PATA :/

All I had to do with my drive was plug the thing in (cannibalized), reformat it, and install windows. That was it.

[mR_r0b0to]

For massively huge flat cable type hard drive thingies that block airflow drives, theres something about setting one to slave and one to master...

Master = your main drive
Slave = any additional drive
Connect the PATA cables, and set the jumper pins.
There are jumper pins on the back of your hard drive that configures your HDD as master or slave.. set accordingly.

so uh, good luck.

oh and uh, im 4 points from 100 rep, sooo... :downs:

[ExAm]

I know that much, at least. I just don't know how I'm supposed to get my desktop onto there, because it's where I put most things. I'm not willing to put all my further stuff in a folder on D, or whatever the drive would be.

[mR_r0b0to]

You can't, as far as I know. Desktop resides where you boot off...

My suggestion would be what you're not willing to do.

[Cortexian]

I know that much, at least. I just don't know how I'm supposed to get my desktop onto there, because it's where I put most things. I'm not willing to put all my further stuff in a folder on D, or whatever the drive would be.
Thats a bad, bad thing to do, dumping everything on your desktop is horrible. If I understand you correctly, you want to make your "desktop" folder on your new driver correct? I don't think thats possible unless you format and then install Windows on the new drive as your Master.

SATA ftw.

[Warsaw]

What's wrong with just adding a new hard drive and simply using it as an expanded space? If it is formatted in NTFS, Windows should recognize it and be able to write to it without a problem.

E.g.

60GB is your C:\ drive, and the new one is say, your D:\, and is used to install new software, or store downloads, etc.

Western Digital sells 500GB SATA 3.0GB/sec 7200RPM hard drives for roughly $100 these days...you can find hard drives with half that capacity (250GB) for about half the price ($50).

[mR_r0b0to]

He wants his desktop to reside in the new drive.

EDIT: two bahrss :D

[Warsaw]

The only ways you are going to manage that cleanly is to either have two installs of the operating system or to reformat and install onto the new hard drive...

[Emmzee]

In order to install another hard drive, you must make a pentagram on the ceiling out of your own blood, position a thin black candle at each of its points, slit a live chicken's throat over the middle, and invoke Satan. Then, you've gotta sell your soul.


You'd be surprised how many times you can do it before Satan realizes you've sold your soul to him more than once.

[ExAm]

I guess I may have to create some shortcuts on my actual desktop to locations on the new drive. Better yet, I'll just get a new drive. I have 400-odd dollars right now, and i'm looking for a way to spend it :/

[Warsaw]

You can create shortcuts from one drive to the desktop. It is no different than grabbing a shortcut from C:\Program Files, only difference being that it is stored under D:\<insert folder name here>.

[Reaper Man]

To install a new drive, right click on your C:\ drive and select format. :downs:

[Kalub]

Yea cause that does something... :awesome:

[Amit]

Uh ya, don't try that if you haven't backed up shit. I have a WD SATA 120GB HDD and a PATA Samsung 40GB HDD. The one that came with my computer was th SATA one. I took the 40GB PATA one out of my old computer and just pulled into an IDE slot, hooked up the power cable, and set the jumper to master. When I booted into Windows, I went to Computer, right-clicked on the new drive, and clicked format. Simple as that. After it's done reformatting you can use it as an expansion HDD. I didn't use it ONLY as an expansion though. I rebooted with the Windows XP disc in my DVD burner and installed XP on the 40GB HDD. And there you go, Vista on the SATA drive and XP on the PATA drive. The best part is that you can transfer files from one drive to the other with no problems haha.

[ExAm]

To install a new drive, right click on your C:\ drive and select format. :downs:I know enough about PCs not to do that :downs:


Uh ya, don't try that if you haven't backed up shit. I have a WD SATA 120GB HDD and a PATA Samsung 40GB HDD. The one that came with my computer was th SATA one. I took the 40GB PATA one out of my old computer and just pulled into an IDE slot, hooked up the power cable, and set the jumper to master. When I booted into Windows, I went to Computer, right-clicked on the new drive, and clicked format. Simple as that. After it's done reformatting you can use it as an expansion HDD. I didn't use it ONLY as an expansion though. I rebooted with the Windows XP disc in my DVD burner and installed XP on the 40GB HDD. And there you go, Vista on the SATA drive and XP on the PATA drive. The best part is that you can transfer files from one drive to the other with no problems haha.
I plan to use my old 60gb for Vista if I ever need it, because my main OS will be XP. Not only can you transfer files from one drive to the other, but you can access the same files no matter which OS you are using, correct?

EDIT: The first time you edit a post, it still says "vote now" instead of "submit". FIX.

[TeeKup]

How about you clean it.

Defragmentation and Disk Clean Up normally help.

[Amit]

Not only can you transfer files from one drive to the other, but you can access the same files no matter which OS you are using, correct?


It seems to be, since I can do that.

[Warsaw]

As long as you aren't trying to transfer from Mac/Linux to Windows, in that order.

[ExAm]

Haven't defragged recently, but disk cleanup is only showing items measured in kilobytes, so that wouldn't help much.

[Amit]

well do the very simple conversion.

[ExAm]

That's not the problem. The problem is that doing so would yield virtually no disk space. Hence what I meant by "measured in kilobytes". Meaning that whatever there is to clean is under one megabyte.

[Amit]

Then don't "clean" anything, I would think that you should know that already. It would make practically no difference.

[ExAm]

Isn't that what I just said?

[Amit]

Not exactly, you said it was a problem. If you knew so much there wouldn't be a problem because you would know that nothing would happen. Um wait I thought you adding a HDD not cleaning one.

[ExAm]

Meantime I was trying to free up some space on my current drive. What I meant when I said it was the problem, was that it was the issue that was currently being discussed, a problem within a bigger problem (the encompassing disk space issue), if you look at it that way.