Just bought a new Dell 4525 and want to add my existing 120 GB HD and add a second 120 GB HD I just bought and probably not use the 60 GB that came with the Dell.

My current drive is partitioned as C/D. I would like the 2nd 120 to be E. It seems that what will be the E has the jumpers set from Maxtor as for cable rather than master or slave. I have to open the computer I connect to the net to see how the C/D is set up so unsure as to that config.

My questions are these:

How do I set the jumpers for a 120 C/D HD and a second E HD?

There are several extra power connectors inside the Dell. Will the closest one work or is there a particular one I need to use?

As to the actual cable...right now the existing 60 is hooked to the end of the cable and there is an empty gray slot not hooked to anything about an inch up. Must I hook the gray slot to the second HD (the C/D has my operating system on it).

Will I need to go into the system configuration and change anything to get this to work?

Finally, if I don't use the existing 60 --- I won't have XP Home --- but I haven't had any problems with Win2000 Pro. Any particular reason to switch other than all of the Dell Help is on that existing Dell drive?

Thanks a lot in advance.

Molly

I personally would rather use XP and as it seems you are newer to computer (well hardware ways anyways) I would recommend XP as it is very user friendly. Set one 120gb up as master and plug the end of the cable into that. set other 120gb as slave and hook into gray unused plug. Doesnt matter which power plugs you use either. Then stick your XP cd in and intall.

Since Win 2000 is already on the 120 I will pull out of this existing computer --- then will I be running both XP and 2000 on the same system?

I tried to just hook the new 120 to the 60 that came with the Dell a while ago. When I tried to boot --- it took me to system configuration. I think I took the black connector off the 60 and put it on the 120 and hooked the gray to the 60 ... so maybe that was the problem?? It just seemed easier as to do it the other way I have to twist the cable around in some convoluted manner.

And the jumper set up? Should they both be set the same or one a master & other a slave if I want to use all space.... or doesn't it matter?

You are sort of correct. 20 years ago I was on the leading edge of the new PC industry. Bugs, fixes, programming, hardware --- not a problem. But I moved into a different career field and technology passed me by before I realized what happened! So yes, if I seem completely lost --- you're right! But I wasn't always this dumb!

Thank you so much for your help.

Molly

(ok, i thought the OS was on the 60). the 120 with windows 2000 should be set to master and on the end of the cable. The other one should be set to slave and hooked to the middle of the cable. When you restart and goto windows you need to goto Control Panel--> Administrative Tools ---> Computer Management. Then click on disk management and look for your unpartioned 120gb space and format it. Since you already have 200 installed I would just stick with that.

Forgot to mention im not sure if thats the proper steps to format in Windows 2000. Someone else will answer on how to do it if that does not work.

Thanks! Dr. Z. I will wait on the formatting HD info before I start ... since once I pull the HD out of this one with 2000 --- I'm off the net until I figure it out.

You are all so very helpful. Thank you again.

Maxtor jumper settings select your HD model and then go to Technical Specifications/Jumper Settings

Not sure if anyone answered this, but if your Dell is like other ones (like my 4550 Dimension, then you'll probably want to set the jumpers to "cable select," NOT master/slave. Also, as others stated the primary drive (OS drive) should be at the end of the IDE cable with the other drive on the middle connector as cable select automatically assumes the end drive is the master.

One thing to do is check the manual if you still have it. It tells you how to install a 2nd hard drive and from those instructions you can tell if the jumper settings need to be cable select or master/slave.

F