Connecting two external hard drives

[Guest TheGame2705]

I can't find anything remotely simple on how to do it. Any help please?

[Guest DrTom]

Well, presuming they're USB drives, you need the USB cables (which should have come with the drives), and either two open USB ports on your PC, or one open port and a USB hub.

 

If the drives are firewire, then you'll again need the cables (which should come with the drives), as well as a firewire port in the PC. If you don't have a firewire port, you'll need to add a firewire expansion card to the PC.

 

The drives may also come with software for BIOS and firmware updates.

[Guest areacode212]

Say, has anyone here ever used one of those hard drive enclosures that enables you to connect an internal hard drive to a USB port? Belkin sells one that seems pretty neat. And if you buy a couple of hard drives, and just swap them in & out of the enclosure as needed, it would come out much cheaper than 2 external drives. It's pretty good for storage (less so for actually running apps, but you generally wouldn't do that anyway). I'm considering going that route.

[Guest TheGame2705]

I don't know if it matters but I'm trying to hook up a Hewlett Packard computer to an old Compaq hard drive. It's not a hard drive you buy separate. Do I connect them still by USB?

[Guest MrRant]

You mean a HD that is "supposed" to go into the computer? If so then you would need a power cable and a IDE cable from the inside of the computer. Good luck on that one.

 

If it is an actual EXTERNAL HD then it should be USB.

[Guest areacode212]

What do the connections on the back of this hard drive look like?

[Guest TheGame2705]

It's one that's supposed to be a stand-alone hard-drive with a monitor and such. It has all the regular PC stuff, 2 PCI and USB slots, mouse, keyboard, speakers, power, printer, and serial.

[Guest MrRant]

You mean a all-in-one computer?

[Guest TheGame2705]

No I mean like a whole Hewlett Packard system. Speakers, monitor, keyboard, mouse, hard drive. And I have an old Compaq Hard drive with nothing but just the hard drive. I just need to use that drive to use a program that requires a drive besides the one you want to recover deleted files from.

[Guest MrRant]

I was asking about the HD. If it is one that is SUPPOSED to be inside of the computer then you need to like I said use one of the power cables and a IDE cable from the inside of your HP.

 

If it is actually an External HD then there should be a USB port on it to connect to your HP.

[Guest areacode212]

If it's an internal HD, and you're just going to use this hard drive temporarily, then just disconnect the power & IDE cable from your CD-ROM drive, and connect them to this new drive.

[Guest TheGame2705]

Yeah just temporarily...where exactly would the power and IDE cable go?

[Guest MrRant]

Who made the drive? Maxtor? Western Digital? Look closely and then go to the manufacturers website for master/slave settings.

[Guest TheGame2705]

Alright thanks, I'll try it

[Guest DrTom]

Yeah just temporarily...where exactly would the power and IDE cable go?

The IDE cable is 40 pins, and should be "keyed" so that it can only be connected the right way. The power cable is 4 power wires in one connection, and is shaped in such a way that it can't be inserted incorrectly.

[Guest MrRant]

Dr. Tom is right but still be sure to visit manufacturers websites for the correct jumper settings for the drives for master and slave. Especially if they aren't cable select.

[Guest TheGame2705]

I was talking more about like would I plug it into the motherboard or the CD-Rom drive of the other comp. Sorry I'm being kinda vague. I know most of this stuff you guys are telling me I just am clueless when it comes to stuff like this.

[Guest MrRant]

Motherboard.

[Guest TheGame2705]

Well I ended up just taking out the thing with the hard drive space on it. It was too hard trying to connect them while still in one piece. So now the question is, I have this thing but no idea what to do with it. I figure I'm supposed to plug in one of the flat cables and the power connector. But here's the thing that throws me off. I have a lone CD drive and it's required that it use the connector on the flat cable labeled slave. So I figure I'll plug master into this thing with the 4 Gigs...except if I plug the master in won't that make my good, normal computer the slave?

[Guest MrRant]

Yes. You main HD should me Master with the 4 Gig Slave.

[Guest TheGame2705]

Hmm well I tried it like this....the flat cable has the slave and power connector in the CD-RW and the 4 gig drive has the power connector and master..and neither is working. It doesn't even say I have a CD drive on the computer.

[Guest TheGame2705]

Nevermind loose cable...now I'm gonna try and figure out how to dual boot.