Three hard drives?

  • Thread starter Thread starter paul
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paul

Hi, Added a second hard drive (80GB) to system. No
problem. Now I want to add another (already used hard
drive - to get some data from it) but my local shop tells
me I can't get a ribbon cable with three sockets (to fit
this third drive) and I will need to get some sort of card
if I want to run three drives? Is this true? Any thoughts
on this welcomed.
Thanks. Best wishes to all, Paul
 
Hello

Yes it's true, you can maybe remore your cdrom from the 2nd controller
on your mother and install that drive and copy your data off and then
re-connect your cdrom. Your pc mother brd has 2 IDE controllers
so you can work with that, but not 2 ribbon cable.

alvin
 
I believe originally the design was only for two devices
on each IDE channel. Im led to believe this has changed to
allow upto 4? As far as the ribbon is concerned I couldnt
tell you but personally Ive not seen it done in the PC
only in an IDE tower
 
paul said:
Hi, Added a second hard drive (80GB) to system. No
problem. Now I want to add another (already used hard
drive - to get some data from it) but my local shop tells
me I can't get a ribbon cable with three sockets (to fit
this third drive) and I will need to get some sort of card
if I want to run three drives? Is this true? Any thoughts
on this welcomed.
Thanks. Best wishes to all, Paul
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure, but your computer should be able to see three IDE hard
drives. You've got two drives attached to your primary IDE controller. Now
attach the third hard drive to your secondary IDE controller. You can
either make the hard drive a slave to your CD-ROM, or vice versa.

I'm pretty sure Windows doesn't have any sort of limit (one that you're in
danger of bumping into anyway) to the number of IDE hard drives installed.
As long as your BIOS can see all three drives, you should be alright.

-Kevin
 
It will be changing when SATA is fully out on the market. If you are using
the standard IDE/ATA ports on the motherbaord then it is Parallel ATA (PATA)
and that is still limited to two devices per cable.

Y.
 
paul said:
Hi, Added a second hard drive (80GB) to system. No
problem. Now I want to add another (already used hard
drive - to get some data from it) but my local shop tells
me I can't get a ribbon cable with three sockets (to fit
this third drive) and I will need to get some sort of card
if I want to run three drives?
Click to expand...

An IDE 'channel' - one of the sockets on the motherboard - can only
support two devices (on a three head cable, one for the board, one for
each drive). But you should have two such sockets, allowing a total of
four devices, say three hard drives and a CD one. Go beyond that and
you need a card to support a further two channels (eg by Promise).
 
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