[Seamey. T]

Hi Guys,just bought a new"Seagate,Barracuda 7200.10 250GB" Hard Drive and want to use my old "Seagate" Disk Drive ST380817 AS SCSI Disk Device (80 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA) as a slave.

I already have a slave drive in at the moment "Disk Drive:SAMSUNG SV4084H (37 GB, 5400 RPM, Ultra-ATA/100)which I intend to remove and wanted to know would it just be a matter of a straight swap.

I plan to reinstall Windows XP Pro on my new drive.

If you need the specs for my system I can attach them later.

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SATA drives have no concept of Master and Slave since you can only connect one SATA drive to any SATA port at any one time therefore they're technically Masters as they are the first (and last) device on a connection.

Therefore you can add the current SATA drive to a second SATA port and the new drive to the first SATA port, though these days it doesn't really matter as most boards will be more than happy to boot off any device plugged into anywhere, realistically. You may have to change the boot order in the BIOS so the machine doesn't try to boot off the wrong drive.

[Neil Jones]

SATA drives have no concept of Master and Slave since you can only connect one SATA drive to any SATA port at any one time therefore they're technically Masters as they are the first (and last) device on a connection.

Therefore you can add the current SATA drive to a second SATA port and the new drive to the first SATA port, though these days it doesn't really matter as most boards will be more than happy to boot off any device plugged into anywhere, realistically. You may have to change the boot order in the BIOS so the machine doesn't try to boot off the wrong drive.

[Seamey. T]

Thanks Neil for the advice.

So I can just take out the Samsung slave drive and replace it with my old hard drive and go into Bios and check the boot order.

One more thing,will I have to format the old drive before I use it again.

[jt1990]

Depends on what you want it for. If you don't want to format, then yes, you're fine. You can plug it into another SATA port and you'll be good to go. But if you have all the stuff off the old drive and all you want the old drive for is storage, you're probably better off to reformat it so you're starting with a brand new drive. Also, if you're boot order is messed up, your computer may try and boot to the OS on the old hard drive if the drive isn't formatted.

[Seamey. T]

Hi jt,so if I install this new hard drive does that mean I have to install new drivers for the whole system or are they on the XP CD,i'm really not sure about this but could post my system specs here and maybe someone advise me on the best route to take.

Maybe the best course would be to get a computer tech to install it but I would love to try.

[Troy]

Hi Seamey, it's not too difficult to do this. Depending on your hardware, XP may pick everything up, although often you'll find Windows Update might find some things. Otherwise you'll have to use the disc that came with the part to install it.

My suggestion would be to disconnect all hard drives and then fit the new one, install XP and get it running good, then add your other hard drive later (and check BIOS to ensure boot order is correct).

Cheers

Troy