add second disk drive to Dimension 8400

  • Thread starter Thread starter nroiter
  • Start date Start date
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nroiter

Hi,

My 8400 has a Seagate Serial ATA dirve (160 GB). I want to add a
seocnd drive, but made the mistake of getting an Ultra ATA, which the
motherboard doesn't support.

The ribbon cables are attached to a CD R/W and a DVD drive.

There appears to be connectors for a second serial ATA-- is this the
way to go?

Thanks
 
The ribbon cables are attached to a CD R/W and a DVD drive.

There appears to be connectors for a second serial ATA-- is this the
way to go?
Click to expand...

2 options: return the hard drive and buy serial version instead or buy
a DVD with CD burner built in (or get a DVD burner which supports CD
burning) for around $50, take out the 2 old drives, and put in the new
hard drive.

The latter would leave an empty 5.25" bay and I don't know if your
model have external flap to hide the drive or not but if it doesn't,
you'll have a big hole in the front.

The former is probably a bit easier since you don't remove anything,
just add the drive, plug in SATA cable and power cable, and it's set.
Do make sure there's extra power connector inside to go with the new
hard drive, and DO make sure you have SATA connector as some hard
drive may not have one included.
 
nroiter said:
My 8400 has a Seagate Serial ATA dirve (160 GB). I want
to add a seocnd drive, but made the mistake of getting an
Ultra ATA, which the motherboard doesn't support.
Click to expand...
The ribbon cables are attached to a CD R/W and a DVD drive.
Click to expand...
There appears to be connectors for a second serial ATA-- is this the way to go?
Click to expand...

Yep.
 
2 options: return the hard drive and buy serial version instead or buy
a DVD with CD burner built in (or get a DVD burner which supports CD
burning) for around $50, take out the 2 old drives, and put in the new
hard drive.
Click to expand...
The latter would leave an empty 5.25" bay and I don't know if your
model have external flap to hide the drive or not but if it doesn't,
you'll have a big hole in the front.
Click to expand...
The former is probably a bit easier since you don't remove anything,
just add the drive, plug in SATA cable and power cable, and it's set.
Do make sure there's extra power connector inside to go with the new
hard drive, and DO make sure you have SATA connector as some hard
drive may not have one included.
Click to expand...

3rd option: Get an ATA to SATA converter. Not really cost efficient.
If you can exchange the drive for an SATA one, do so.

4th Option: Get an IDE controller, e.g. a Promise ultra 133TX2.

Arno
 
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