Dell Dimension 8200- want to install 3 harddrives

[intrepidxxxx]

Please some advices as to how to install 3 harddrives.
Any particular crad that I shoul buy? and steps by steps guidelines for installation of hardrives and card would be aprreciated.
Thanks

 

[Grunt2002]

Hi,

So you want to make it 1+3=4 hard drives.
I don't know about your machine (dimension 8200). It is from a desktop series, so I suppose it has an atx motherboard.

You'll need a pci-to-ide card (pci ata/dma controller) because of the cd drive that uses one of the four basic ide plugs. Select a fast one (133 mhz).
Some ide cards carry out up to 4 ports, that is 8 disks (2 disks per port).
Do you need a RAID controller ? If so, the card you buy will be different, and so will be the setup.

The card's user guide normally explains you how to proceed. I suppose you won't start from scratch, so you have a working operating system installed on your primary master disk on ide-0. Installing more disks is no pain if you're running windows 2000/xp. Just plug the physical connections the right way (as the manual says), and at the first boot after having handled the machine, you should be able to format the new drives and give them names.

PS : notice that with some bios/motherboard/ata controller combinations, you might be asked to plug your ide-0 disk (the original one, supporting the os) into the new ata controller card, as it can take control of the whole ide disk access (that is overwhelming the onboard ide devices).

Cheers,

Grunt