Installing Multiple Hard Drives

[MaXiMuS_N00BuS]

I want to install 4 hard drives inside my PC. I currently have 2 installed but i want to add 2 more. I have a 4 bay hard drive stack but my ribbon cable only supports 2 hard drives (4 bay hard drive stack and only 2 connectors?! Weird) and it is full (Master and Slave.) How do i connect the other 2? Any pictures to show an installation example?

 

[b1gapl]

You just need to get another ribbon cable (IDE cable), with 2 connectors. That's if you have another IDE slot on the motherboard for that cable.

 

[MaXiMuS_N00BuS]

Well i have 3 IDE slots (occupied) 1 in use by the hard drives, 1 in use by 2 optical drives (only using 1 drive btw) and 1 in use by the floppy drive which i do not use (cannot use) and probably never will. Is there any way instead of using 4 hard drives to use 3? Like, take the connector thats connected to my unused optical drive and hook my hard drive up to it. OR, if i want to use 4 then take the one from the floppy and put the 4th hard drive on it? I'm not quite sure if the slots that the optical drives and the floppy are occupying are called "IDE's" anyway. What exactly does "IDE" stand for anyway? EDIT: 2 IDE slots.....

Here's my mobo: ECS Web Site

 

[b1gapl]

Like, take the connector thats connected to my unused optical drive and hook my hard drive up to it.

That's one way to do it. But you still have one more hard drive to put in, right? Well the only way this can be achieved, is if you removed the other connection from the optical being used, but you'd have no optical. Or you get an IDE PCI card, to add extra IDE slots.

I'm not quite sure if the slots that the optical drives and the floppy are occupying are called "IDE's" anyway. What exactly does "IDE" stand for anyway?

The IDE slots that the floppy and opticals/hard drives use, are different. And IDE stands for "Integrated Drive Electronics". More info on this:
AT Attachment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[MaXiMuS_N00BuS]

**Updated Last Post** (Posted mobo link)

Where can i find that IDE PCI card at? The rinky-dink computer stores around here definitely wont have it..

 

[b1gapl]

Where can i find that IDE PCI card at? The rinky-dink computer stores around here definitely wont have it..

Newegg.com - StarTech 2 Port PCI ATA-133 IDE Adapter Card Model PCIIDE2 - Retail
Newegg.com - MASSCOOL PCI Card, 2 internal IDE Model XWT-RC020 - Retail

 

[sPlAtOiD]

Do you have SATA on your board. Also you can do this two different ways. What I did for my computer I use for storage is took all the optical drives out and used a usb external DVD burner. And I have 4 hard drives hooked up to the two IDE cables. And I have 2 hooked up the the SATA cables. You could get a enclosure for your optical drive and do it the way I do or you can hook your drive up with the optical drive as long as one ifs master and one is slave.