"newbie" question

[Noxious]

I am wondering if it's possible, and if so how to, hook up an old hard drive in a computer that already has a HD in it, and get stuff off of it. Or would it be best to just remove HD and replace it with the old one and get your stuff off, or can you make it the slave when things are already set up on your computer?

 

[wannabe_hacker]

Yes, you can hook up a second HD to your computer. You can set the second HD to slave and you should be able to get what you want from it.

 

[Noxious]

So just put it in and hook it up to slave IDE?

 

[wannabe_hacker]

No its not enough to just hook it up to the slave IDE port. You have to set the jumper settings to slave on the drive itself. Then you just hook it up to the slave IDE and it should work fine.

 

[didi]

then u can format the new HDD according your old HDD file system. By then u can backup your data on the new HDD from the old HDD.

 

[compy]

sorry for another stupid question but what is a slave drive? is it just a back up drive with the same stuff as the the first just incase the first goes kaput?

 

[dumdum8684]

All that the slave means is that the OS is not on it. Its just a secondary drive. The OS must be put on the master jumper settings. As long as the jumper settings are correct, it doesn't matter what HD is connected to which connector.

 

[lavenderAC]

There are instuctions on the HD about how to set master/slave jumpers. Just follow them and hook them back up and its all good

 

[Apokalipse]

a master hard drive usually has the OS, a slave is just one drive letter up, but there is not much difference; just look out for conflicts between 2 drives - so they are not both master or slave at the same time

 

[Noxious]

So set the jumper to slave on the old HD and hook it to IDE cable.

I am a little confused by Didi's post. Please explain what you mean by formatting the new HD by the old one's file system?

My new one is formatted with C and D drives. The old one I am pretty sure is just C. (it's been a few years) It also has Windows ME on it and this one has XP.