hard drive

[Patty]

I have an older Gateway P5-166 with 2.5G hard drive and a Dell P3 with 1G. Can I replace the 1 with the 2.5?

 

[CopperFrog]

Yeah it shouldn't be a problem give it a world. Make sure you set your jumpers on your harddrive right if one of them was use as anything else then a master.

 

[Patty]

My error, I have 1Ghz and a 2.5GB in the old computer. Is it worth adding it to the newer one?

 

[hilowe]

It's always extra storage space on the newer computer. The price is right. It also will give you a place to backup certain things, so if your computer crashes and you have to format, you don't lose everything.

 

[Patty]

I agree, but after doing some checking, how do I find out if my mother board is able to support the drive?

 

[ekÆsine]

Patty it will support the disk becaue this is backwards compatability for older IDE disks. i am saying ths will work. however, i would suggest you do not use this disk on a newer computer.

if the difference gap between old and new technology is big do not mix, this is my personal rule. some exceptions are hooking up an 8-track to the sound card to record audio.

 

[Patty]

Thanks for the help! This computer stuff is common to some, but I am just in the learning stage. Turn it on and run the program was all I needed to know.

 

[CopperFrog]

If you are adding the old harddrive to you current system that already has one make sure you set the 2.5 Gb drive jumper to slave and put it on the same IDE cable your current harddrive is attached too, there should be a free connector unless another device is attached to it.

 

[Patty]

If it is installed, the speed of the older driver is obviously going to be slower. I think that is why you are referencing jumpers. With this thought, is there any way to utilize the speed from the newer maching to speed up the older drive?

 

[hilowe]

In a word, no. The hard drive has a physical limitation with rpm speed, seek time, and buffer (all things that affect how fast it finds what you want).

The jumper setting is because the computer looks for a master and a slave for items that are on the same IDE cable. I don't believe that you have to boot off of the master, but one has to be set. If there are two masters on one IDE cable, I believe the computer won't be able to boot. Same if there are two slaves on the same IDE cable.