adding an IDE hard drive to a desktop machine ?
 

I was given a couple of 250G IDE hard drives,

I want to use one to dump all the movies, MP3s and other large files I do not use much,

Will it just bolt in or do I need to do something else ?

Does it matter that the other Hard drive is a SATA ?

thanks for your help

RB

If your computer is relatively recent, then it may not have any ide ports. If you want to put the hdd inside your computer, then you can get a pci to ide card. If you want to have the hdd outside (and removable), then a usb to ide adapter should would.

I was going to put it in an old IBM pentium 4 machine ,

its just for download and storage and not my regular everyday use desk top

RB

Get a usb to ide adapter. You can get them cheap $10-15 from TigerDirect or new Egg and you won't have to touch your current desktop. Plus you can utilize all of HD's you were given. The USB to ide adapter I just bought came with a case for the HD. If it is for download and storage keep it external.

You need an IDE cable, two 4-pin power plugs and a spare port on the motherboard. IDE controllers support two drives per controller so one port on the board will cover both drives.

You do need to check the jumpers on the drives themselves. Generally you need one drive set to master and one set to slave, although depending on the cable you might be able to set them both to cable select. Any reasonably modern hard drive should have the jumper setting directions written on the drive itself.

If you can't see your drives you have at least one of them set wrong--if they're both master or both slave they get in an argument with each other and don't talk to the machine at all. (This causes no harm to the drives.)

Some drives will work when set to master and there's nothing else on the cable, some won't. No drive will work set to slave without a master present.

Don't spend much getting cables, 250gb drives aren't worth very much these days.


Standard handling precautions apply: The power supply itself must be off (the front panel switch is *NOT* enough!!!) and you must ground yourself before touching any of the electronics.

Drives are so cheap, is it really worth bothering with these old obsolete tiny hard drives? I guess if your computer has the slots and the IDE connectors and you have the cables, well, maybe. But do you know how cheap new large SATA drives are?

I was thinking external enclosure also, but it's not worth the $20 you would have to spend on each one.

-David

I think I like 250 GB size HDs,

its more than I have stored on any of my computers , I am not one to buy new computers if my old one is OK for everyday use ,

and free is free !

Rally

This has worked really well for me.

Yes, it's $20, but at what point is it worth it to put another $20 into it when you can buy a brand new better performing 500GB SATA2 internal drive for under $50? (with the per-GB price going down as you go larger).

I guess the value proposition is subjective and personal.

The internal method is probably free if they have the cable they need, or very cheap if they don't. (assuming a drive slot is available and IDE exists and is not maxed out already.) Still, I wouldn't do it unless the drive had some archival data I wanted to keep around for backup purposes, and in that case, I would probably go with the external enclosure or bridge Yes, that is subjective and personal too.

-David