slave drive?

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i rebuilt a pentium 3.its good for its age and what is required of it in its
uses.i installed xp home and its running great,although it only has 320 of
ram but i plan to insatll its full 512 that is its top line for ram.i
installed a an 80 gig hard drive as a slave.a self confessed computer mr know
all told me you cannot install a slavedrive on a pentium 3 that it will not
run properly and the pc will not except it.i think he is totaly wrong?can
anyone tell me who is right him or me?thanx.ps,built the pc for my 4 yearold
daughter as just a starter computer for her to learn on.
 
I never heard of a PC than will not support a slave drive. A BIOS check
should verify this.
Also check the IDE cable to the existing hard drive, it should have a second
unused connector to which you would connect the slave drive..

Jim
 
.a self confessed computer mr know
all told me you cannot install a slavedrive on a pentium 3 that it will
not
run properly and the pc will not except it.i think he is totaly wrong?
Click to expand...

You are correct. I had slave drives in 386s, and they'll most definitely
work with a P3.

However, there is a possibility that your BIOS can't do an 80 GB drive. If
you currently have a drive bigger than 8.5 GB, then your upper limit is
probably 137 GB and you're all set. If you are currently using a drive
smaller than 8 GB, you might want to check with the mobo manufacturer or
look for a BIOS update that removes this 8 GB limit.

-John O
 
jelly said:
i rebuilt a pentium 3.its good for its age and what is required of it in its
uses.i installed xp home and its running great,although it only has 320 of
ram but i plan to insatll its full 512 that is its top line for ram.i
installed a an 80 gig hard drive as a slave.a self confessed computer mr know
all told me you cannot install a slavedrive on a pentium 3 that it will not
run properly and the pc will not except it.i think he is totaly wrong?
Click to expand...

Hi, grammer police here. Your post is hard to understand.

I've never had any problems running a slave drive on a p3. Or a P2, or
a P1. What you want to avoid if you can is putting your main hard
drive on the same cable as your CD drive. It's a performance
bottleneck. Not a stability problem, however.



can
 
thanx jim,i knew it would support a slave drive i just needed some one to
agree with me.i checked the bios and bought a new ide triple cable as the old
one was past it.i have only been learning for 8 months and all the help i can
get is most welcome,thanx again.
 
no its not on the cd drive cable its on the primary hard drive cable.and its
running great,thanx
 
Your friend is totally inept. He or she doesn't know what they are talking
about. The CPU is nothing to do with the number or types of hard drive. Hard
drive numbers and types are controlled by controller chips. The inbuilt IDE
being the most common. A computer that age would have a standard parallel
IDE which will have two channels each taking two IDE devices. Which comes to
four IDE devices as standard. That can be made of 1 to 4 hard drives or CD
drives, or mixtures.

The only limitation of some older boards is BIOS limits relating to size of
hard drive (if there are any limits at all) but you would need to check the
manual or web site. If there is any limitation a BIOS update will most times
sort the problem. If a BIOS update fails to sort out a large drive problem
there are workarounds.

Whilst the above is not a complete write up of hard drive controllers it is
the most likely setup which will affect you.
 
jelly bean said:
i rebuilt a pentium 3.its good for its age and what is required of it in its
uses.i installed xp home and its running great,although it only has 320 of
ram but i plan to insatll its full 512 that is its top line for ram.i
installed a an 80 gig hard drive as a slave.a self confessed computer mr know
all told me you cannot install a slavedrive on a pentium 3 that it will not
run properly and the pc will not except it.i think he is totaly wrong?can
anyone tell me who is right him or me?thanx.ps,built the pc for my 4 yearold
daughter as just a starter computer for her to learn on.
Click to expand...

There is no prohibition against slave drive's on a Pentium 3 or any
older hardware.

There are some possible pitfalls in what you are attempting to do,
however.

1. The Pentium 3 BIOS may not be capable of recognizing the full
capacity of the 80 gb drive, and may identify it as an 8 gb or 32 gb
model.

2. There can be problems with master/slave hard drive setups if the
two drives are from different manufacturers and also were manufactured
a number of years apart. If, for example, the existing drive is a 10
gb model from company A and your 80 gb drive is from company B then
you might repeat might experience problems. If these do occur then
try reconfiguring the drive connections so that the new 80 gb is the
master drive on the seconday IDE channel.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
ok ok,thanx guys slave drive is working perfect,it does register as an 80
gig.read the manual for the dell pentium 3 and it says everthing is fine,all
is working perfect.
 
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