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Sameermiruk wrote:

I have a Dell Dimension 8300 with two IDE hard drives installed.  I have bought a WD SATA hard drive and need to install it.

I know that it would have to be my primary drive but I have no idea how I should go about installing it since the drive came with no documentation.

 

- Do I need to activate the SATA ports before I plag the HD in?
- Do I need to install certain drivers?  If yes where do I get them and how do I install them, using a floppy?
- Will the other two drives need to come out of the pc when I install the SATA? 
- What happens with the operating system on my old drive?  Do I just format it once I reconnect it to the pc?
- Will the PC recognice the old ones once I put them back in?

 

If you guys have any other tips I would be very grateful.

 

Presyden

 

In the future, by using the Advanced Forum Search on the bottom of this page, you can quite easily find the answer to this often asked question.  This question in particular is asked frequently.

 

- No.  You activate after you put it in, when you boot.

- Yes.  http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_other&message.id=200188

- No.

- You never disconnect it.  You just leave it, copy off what you want, then format it.

- Don't take them out.

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Sameermiruk wrote:

UPDATE:

Installed the drive and it is working. I enabled the Sata port and installed the drivers from Dells website, although I'm not sure if I needed too.

Anyway, the problem I have now is my old hard drives being recognised.

- If all the drives are plugged in they are all recognised.
- If I take out the slave IDE drive the two remaining are recognised.
- If I take out the master IDE drive leaving the slave in with the sata, the slave is not recognised.

I've enabled and disabled them in Bios but no joy. My original plan was to have one sata and the slave IDE because it has more storage. Any ideas?

 

Move the slave ide to the end connector, leaving it jumpered as Cable Select.