What kind of computer ribbon do I need to buy to hook up a slave drive on my computer?
Also, are there any risks that go along with hooking up a second hard drive just in case I might mess something up?
Thanks!
Answers:
A lot of hard drives come with the ribbon cable. If not, then you can get a ribbon cable at CompUSA. It should say something like Hard drive cables.
Make sure you have a power splitter, or an available power connection off your hard drive, this would cause problems if you didn't.
Also, when you install the hard drive, make sure you connect the cable to pin 1 of the hard drive. Some hard drives and cables are "keyed" so they fit one way, but others, like mine, do not. Also, ensure the second hard drive is set to slave, there is a jumper that you have to set.
Once you make sure the jumper is set, and the cable is on right, and you have them all on the same cable, then when you turn on the machine, you might have to go into the BIOS. What I usually do is turn the machine on, and go into the BIOS. Once there, I check and see if the BIOS sees it. If it does, then I exit out and continue booting. If it doesn't, there is no need to continue, there is sually something set up wrong on the drive or the cable. Once I determine I have everything set up correctly, I boot and go into Windows. Then, if all is well, it will open the drive and make sure I have what I paid for, ie, 320G is 320G.
On older machines, they can only see up to a certain size. They sometimes will need a BIOS update, this usually comes on a disk.
I recently bought a 320G, and the computer saw it, but XP didn't, so I installed the software and all is good.
The only way you could screw it up is if the computer wanted to format it, in DOS, and you formatted C drive instead of the new drive letter. Another way you could screw up is if you tried to hot swap the drives, or connect the power cable on the hard drive while the machine was on. One other way is drop the drive onto the floor or something.
If you are that worried, back up any valuable files you want to keep, then you won't have to worry about it. I never had a problem with installing hard drives, but not saying it wouldn't happen someday.
im not quite sure about the ribbon but before you do this you should do a backup in case something gets messed up
To add to George P's answer, be sure that the ribbon cable is an 80 signal type cable and not a 40 signal type.
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