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BOOT CAMP 087
INSTALLING A SECOND HARD DRIVE PART 1
The traditional reason for replacing or installing a new
hard disc drive on a PC is to increase the amount of storage space available.
However, prices have fallen so much in the past year or so that it's now worth
fitting a second hard drive as a high-capacity non-removable backup device or
even a standby boot disc, in case Windows blows a gasket or your main C: drive
develops a fault. Either way it can be a quick and simple job that should take
no more than an hour or so to complete.
Hard disc drives are now incredibly cheap. We managed to
find several mail order companies advertising good quality 4.3 gigabyte drives
from top-name manufacturers for less than £70, (including VAT), moreover some
of them waive post and packing charges if you order direct from their Internet
web sites.
There are a few ifs and buts to consider before you order
your new drive and the first one is your PC's age and operating system. For the
sake of simplicity we're confining ourselves to fairly up to date PCs with
later versions of Windows 95 or Windows 98 which have the more efficient FAT 32
filing system. That will almost certainly be the case if your C: drive has a
formatted capacity greater than 2 gigabytes. If you are using an earlier
version of Windows with the FAT 16 filing system things tend to get a bit more
complicated since the operating system can only handle 2 gigabytes or less of
storage space at a time. You can fit larger disc drives to such systems but
they will have to be split up or partitioned into 2Gb chunks. Each partition
becomes a virtual disc drive, with its own drive letter. If you have the option
and haven't already done so, it's well worth converting to FAT 32; the utility
is included in Accessories, under System Tools.
Point number two is the type of drive you need to buy. There
are several different kinds of interface and control system and that determines
the type of connection between the drive and the PC motherboard. Fortunately
the vast majority of Pentium and Pentium class machines use a system known as
EIDE which supports up to four drives. Most of the other systems are either
obsolete or designed for demanding applications and lie outside the scope of
this article. Incidentally disc drives come in two physical sizes however
virtually all desktop PCs are fitted with 3.5-inch drives, which is the width
of the mounting bracket or 'bay' inside the case.
Next, decide how much storage capacity you need. In the
olden days – three or four years ago – the rule of thumb was to think of a
number and double it because no matter what size drive you had, Windows and the
never ending stream of bloated applications would quickly fill it up in. Now
however we've reached a plateau and a lot of PC users are finding their 4 and 6
gigabyte drives still have room to spare, even after a couple of years
intensive use. If that's the case with your machine then there's no need to go
mad, the same or the next size up should be more than enough, unless you are
planning to use it for space hungry applications like digital video editing.
When you look through the advertisements for disc drives you
may see several other bits of information listed alongside storage capacity and
interface type. Expensive high performance drives with fast access times, large
cache sizes and high spin speeds are important for jobs like video processing
and editing. However, if you mostly use your PC for routine home and office
applications such as word processing, spreadsheets and accounts, Internet
access, playing games, graphics or desktop publishing, then you really don't
need to worry too much about fancy specifications. The same applies if you
simply want a second drive as a backup.
You should make sure you have the necessary space and cables
inside your machine for a second drive (unless you are planning to replace your
existing drive), and the only way to do that is to have a peek inside. Observe
all of the usual precautions. Switch the PC off at the mains socket but leave
the mains plug in so the case is earthed. After you have removed the cover
touch the metal chassis before you start poking around inside. This will
dissipate any static charges on your clothing or body. (If you are ultra cautious
or a highly charged individual then it's worth investing in an anti-static
wristband. They only cost a couple of pounds and can be obtained from most PC
dealers). Look for an empty drive bay above or below the existing hard drive.
Make sure there's a surplus power connector (similar to the ones going into the
back of the existing disc drives and a spare connector block on the grey ribbon
cable between the plug going into the back of your existing hard disc drive and
the motherboard.
If everything checks out and you are ready to proceed you
must now make a System Start-up Disc. Go to Control Panel and click on the
Add/Remove Programs icon, select the Start-up tab and follow the instructions.
When that's done you can go ahead and buy your new hard disc drive. Next week
we'll look at how to install it inside your PC.
Next week – Fitting a hard drive, Part 2
JARGON FILTER
EIDE
Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics, disc drive interface
and control system used on most recent PCs
FAT 32
32-bit File Allocation Table, a more efficient way of using
disc space that also allows large multi-gigabyte disc drives to be treated as a
single entity. The older FAT 16 system can only access up to 2Gb at a time so
larger drives have to be divided or partitioned
PARTITION
Dividing a large disc drive up into partitions or virtual
drives gets around capacity limitations imposed by an operating system or the
drive's own control system
TOP TIP
If you have the volume control/sound mute icon on your
taskbar (the little yellow speaker) you'll know if that you double-click on it
the full Volume Control window with multiple level and balance sliders appears
on the screen. It can be quite handy to have it on the screen if you're setting
up or working with multimedia applications but it takes up a lot of room. You
can reduce its size by around 50% by pressing Ctrl + S when it is displayed;
pressing Ctrl + S again restores it to normal size. By the way, if you haven't
put the volume control on your taskbar you can do so from Multimedia in Control
Panel (Start > Settings), the option check-box is at the bottom of the
Volume tab.
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