adding a second sata drive

[SteamWake]

I am considering a second drive for my desktop.

Now I know you can pretty much drop in and plug in a sata drive no pesky master slave cable select issues.

But... I know that IDE busses (on certain mobo's) had issues with an upper limit on storage capacity.

The drive I am considering is a Terrabyte. Is there any such issues with sata buses?

Western Digital 'Caviar"

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15363

[Arclight]

Not that I know of, but good question.

I think those limitations for IDE applied to a single drive. If the controller couldn't handle more than 500GB, you could still plug in multiple 500GB drives.

* alright, here you go:

There are three factors: the HDD itself, the HDD controller on your mobo, and the OS. Over a decade ago they went to using "LBA" for disk addressing. At that time they used 28-bit addressing for LBA, which allows for a maximum size to 138 Billion bytes (or, M$ Windows calls that 127 GB).

Around 2000 that system was upgraded to "48-bit LBA Support", which allows for HDD's up into the petabyte region! All three components of the system need to support 48-bit LBA for this to work. Whether or not your mobo's HDD controller has this should be available from your mobo manufacturer's website. Look for statements about "48-bit LBA" or HDD's over 127 GB. Just plain "LBA" or "Large hard drive" is not clear enough. WARNING: If you try to use an OS that allows larger drives when the HDD controller does not, you could corrupt your drive. Basically in some situations the OS may try to write to an area above 127 GB, but the controller will fail to pass on the full address, and the write operation will happen near the start of the drive, corrupting what's there.

As another clue, ALL SATA drive systems (controllers and HDD's) support 48-bit LBA - the new system was in place when SATA was introduced, and it was built into the SATA designs. So in your case if you are installing a SATA drive, for sure the HDD and its controller will be OK.

On the OS side, it also needs to support 48-bit LBA. Windows 2000 did not until a later Service Pack (I think 4, but I'm not sure). Win XP originally did not; it was added with SP1 and continued thereafter. If you don't have SP2 installed (or at very least SP1), download and install now.

** http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/...6170_14_0.html

[SteamWake]

I actually read that article after I posted this but thanks. It would appear that the maximum has been raised quite a bit to the 'petrabyte' range so a Terrabyte should be no problem.

What will be a problem is moving all the crap around... Oi...

[d@rk51d3]

Just be prepared to do some cable and jumper pin juggling on the IDE.

When I did mine, the IDE drive would conflict with the SATA, and the IDE would be forced off the list, or sometimes into slave mode, and would try booting from the SATA instead.

Apparently quite normal behaviour.

[SteamWake]

The only IDE drives are the twin dvdrw's.

There are no fixed disk IDE drives on the system. Just one Sata that has run outa space.

[CaptainHaplo]

You should be fine then. Make sure your current drive is on the MB Sata0 port - and the new one to Sata1. This will make sure the pc doesn't try to boot off the new one.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

You should be fine then. Make sure your current drive is on the MB Sata0 port - and the new one to Sata1. This will make sure the pc doesn't try to boot off the new one.

Yea it would have a tough time trying to boot off a drive that isnt even formatted

Wife just picked up the drive damn thing did not come with a cable

Ill be dropping it in tonight. It will be nice to have a little breathing room again.

[SteamWake]

Formatting as I type this.

The drive went for $110.00 Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB.

I hit two hitches. The drive did indeed come without the sata jumper but I knew that. Sata Cable add $20.00.

What I dident know was that sata had adopted a new power connector format. A mad dash to the local computer guru (really nice guy) I bought a Molex to SATA power adaptor $4.00

Screwed down the drive, connected the cables, boot autodetect finds a new drive. I checked in hardware props and there she is !

Go to windows explorer and no joy on my new drive.

I had completly forgotten about having to 'mount' and partition the new drive

Now I just wait.

[Arclight]

Don't need a jumper for normal use, iirc.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by Arclight

Don't need a jumper for normal use, iirc.

Well cable / jumper whatever sata conn to the mobo.

One hour into formatting.. about 30% done.

[Arclight]

Ah, ok.

Yeah format is gonna take while. Even a 640GB drive takes longer than I care to remember.

[SteamWake]

Oh I forgot to add. I wanted the second fixed disk named D: so I had to disconnect the twin DVDwr's temporarly.

[Arclight]

I think you can use Disk Management to assign drive letters.

[SteamWake]

Well regardless you gotta mount and format the sucker and pulling out a couple of cables (to me at least) is the easy way out.

Formatting right at 3 hours.

Transferrring Steamapps now. An amusing note there seems to be a conflict between the two drives due to their speed differences. The 'estimated' time displayed is all over the map from 40 minutes to 360 minutes

That will be done when its done.

If anyone needs help on mounting a new drive lemme know. I left alot of specifics out.