Dell 8300 - Add Second Harddrive

I'm trying to add a second harddrive to my new Dell 8300 and have a couple
of quick questions. Does the second drive have to be on the same cable as
the current Primary drive? The current cable in the 8300 is a single drive
cable. If I need a dual drive cable, are they standard and can you get it
at the local computer. Thanks for any insights.
Charlie
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Charliec
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That's strange, my 8300 hard drive cable has an extra plug for 2nd drive
(and extra drive rails clipped inside for mounting drives). I used that
to check if another drive was okay after a homebuilt PC blew a power
supply (drive worked). If cable plugs are marked 1 and 2, drives should
be jumpered cable select rather than master/slave.

I imagine if you have CD or DVD, that might have an extra plug that
would work.

 

depends on what drive it is - if it's IDE then the ribbon connector should
have another plug half way down.
if it's Serial ATA then you need another serial ata cable to plug into the
motherboard- right next to where the first plugs in.

note that even if you have serial ATA you can buy an IDE ribbon cable to
connect to the motherboards IDE connector - although it won't be as fast
probably as a SATA drive.

 

http://docs.us.dell.com/docs/systems/dim8300/sm/drives.htm

 

What ? Shouldn't you be able to have up to four IDE devices AND up to two
SATA devices ? Assuming enough power & places to mount them. I've added
a SATA hard drive to my 8300 so it now has both the original IDE hard drive AND
the SATA hard drive along with two DVD drives. I haven't gotten around to
reloading windoze on it yet and making it the boot drive, but everything works
fine.

Ken

 

Have you considered the advantages to adding an external drive?? Secure
backup, portability, etc.?

 

Thanks for the reply. Sorry for the long note, but I'm still having a heck
of a time getting the 2nd drive added. The drive I'm trying to add is a
40GB WDC drive I had in my old system. It has, I guess what you call an 80
pin cable (the cable connector has 39 pins with one blank pin slot in the
middle. I'm using the same cable that I had in my old system (80 pin
cable).

Here's the situation on the new system. It had 3 IDE drive connectors
listed in the BIOS as follows:

SATA Primary Drive - Harddrive attached (a 34/78 pin connector with the
second pin from the right blank)
SATA Secondary Drive - OFF

Primary Master Drive - OFF (has a 40 pin connector with one blank pin slot
in the middle)
Primary Slave Drive - OFF

Secondary Master Drive - CD-ROM attached
Secondary Slave Drive - CD-ROM attached

I attached the 2nd harddrive to the Primary Master Drive with the 40 pin
cable. I have the drive set to Cable Select. I attached power to the
drive. On bootup, I go into the BIOS and switch the Primary Master Drive
from "OFF" to "AUTO" assuming it would detect the drive. It does not and I
get "Unknown device" listed in the BIOS.

So, can any outline what I am doing wrong here. I cannot attach th drive
as the SATA Secondary Drive as it requires the 40/80 pin connector vs. the
34/78 pin connector on the 1st drive.

Thanks for any tips/suggestions (and again, sorry for the long note)
Charlie

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Charliec
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Good idea, I'm going to look into that.
Charlie

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Charliec
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Ok, folks,
I saw this in the document referenced below:

"NOTE: Install only IDE hard drives or serial ATA hard drives in your
computer. You cannot install both types of drives."

I must have missed that statement in the manual. I was attempting to
install an IDE along side an ATA and apparently that cannot be done.

Sorry for running you all around in circles. I'll try reading more
carefully next time!
Charlie

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Charliec
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I have to disagree on this, In My 8300 I purchased in Dec 2003 I have 1
SATA 120mb drive and have added an additional 120MB ide and 60 mb ide drive
to the system and it works perfectly.

Rod