Can a pc work with 2 hard drives?

Do two Outlook Express in the same pc work together?

from WinCustomize Forums
 My hp is fried...well the motherboard, power supply and a few other things are gone.  The hard drive is fine, as is the cd burner and a kool neon fan.  Anyway my pc guy will install in this , my new one... the cd thing , I don't think it hurts to have an extra, and he said he can put the hard drive inside the pc as well, or I can have it as an external hard drive, just plugging it in when I want to use it.  My question is, if it is installed internally that means it will always be *on*...so in essence there will be two Outlook Express, etc. and is this good or not? 
Thanks much for any help!!!
89,098 views 28 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
I would guess the tech would install it as a secondary drive. You would have the main drive (Just like it was before), and the secondary drive would be an extra place to store things.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I'm sure it can; techically mine has 3 hard drives.

1 internal is my main one.
1 internal is a 'backup' one, I'm not exactly sure the purpose of it. Windows crucial files I guess
1 external is my secondary main one. Ran out of room on my main one so I'm using this now.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Having two internal drives is great. I have two and store all of my music, graphics and documents there leaving my main drive free for the operating system. I even have my space consuming programs installed on the second drive. It helps me to stay more organized, if that is possible!!!
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Depending on many factors ranging from OS to the mobo specs, one could fit as many as four different PHYSICAL drives in any given 'modern' towers.

 

- PSU must have the required feeding rails.

- IDE slots (be it ATA or better) should have their dedicated master_slave configuration accordingly.

- The conventional enumeration process should detect any 'settings & hardwares' as long as the mobo specs are within their limits.

 

I once had an old PC with three drives in it (most were also partitionned with logical schemas, btw) and a single CD reader tied with the 2nd IDE cable as slave, and everything was running smooth and i could access all as long as the BIOS was detecting any on boot.

 

More important is the OS limits; old systems couldn't tackle any drives above the 40Gigs size and even then, some mobos wouldn't stick up with bigger drives than 12Gigs. Besides, that the main OS ***must*** initialize from a primary partition (or able to dual-boot with another if one setup has such capacity through external programs)... the physical limit on drives is more about how many gigs must be allocated than the maximum number of four 'items'.

One thing to note though is that in certain high-end 'monster_machines' (servers, comes to mind) the 4 max rule doesn't really apply.

 

But we're talkin' personal PC, right?

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top


Yes, sorry, it is a personal pc....AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+
2.21 GHz. 960MB RAM .... Thank you Kitkun, Windexglow, Frankief and Zyxpsilon!! :D And I also like the idea of trying to be more organized.... Frankie sounds like you have a very good setup!! :D
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I have 5 Hard Drives

2 Raptors in RAID (Internal)
1 500GB WDHDDSATA (Internal)
1 1TB WD HDDESATA (External)
1 250GB WD Laptop (Extenral)
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Amazingly he could have just used an internet search engine and found the answers quicker, in more depth, and without having someone hold his hand.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top


Thank you CommanderAdama!! dragoaskani...yes could have, but thought maybe it would be useful to someone else as well, it is always good to hear other peoples experiences, ideas, etc. and *she* does not need anyone to hold her hand. ;)
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Amazingly he could have just used an internet search engine and found the answers quicker, in more depth, and without having someone hold his hand.


This is a community, we are here to help other members. This is a question about TBC's personal computer posted in the Personal Computing section of the forums.
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Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Besides, if everybody looks for an answer to somebody else's question, there won't be anybody asking it in the first place.
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Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
What motherboard are they putting in this? Most today don't have 2 IDE ports.
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
What motherboard are they putting in this? Most today don't have 2 IDE ports.

Indeed, mine only has 1 and 4 SATA connectors. My system drive is still IDE until I get around to switching it out for a small SATA drive.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Hold it, there's some technicalities 'definition' that should be straigthened up i guess.

 

Available Buses, ScSi & SATA connectors, IDE(s) controller, number of physical slots in the casing itself... all more important than the next.

Like i said, the mobo dictates how & why the HDs array deploy and if the Bios doesn't detect the 'supposedly' compatible elements installed there's nothing else anyone can do but either get the adequate mobo specs or simply forget adding what simply can't.

 

The 500Gigs Sata i got along with the pretty recent gear (Acer 5640, boosted & adapted, manufactured just this January) i bought is on IDE-1 (bus_0, master) and the Blue_Ray DVD_CD_SCSI is using the second IDE (bus_2) -- considering the Raid array could still be there if needed eventually.

 

 

Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

And since, someone brought up the 'organized' settings...

C_D_E_F_G_H_I

 

(It's been like this for years, the only things that changed is how the physical devices are fitted into the tower)

 

H_ is always the CD_DVD stuff.

I_ was an Iomega zip drive before but now, it's simply a virtual slot locked as 4.6+ to copy_move DVD folders as a whole and straight burning.

 

C_ core OS, either as a full drive or partitioned once the usual hidden OS stuff is left on its slam refer tag space.

DEFG_ were created off a second drive, but not this time around.

 

And since, there is a firewire_1394 too, i suppose i could also go the EXTERNAL way which counts as any extra drives also.

J_ is an onlooker for USB sticks (8 total in the tower, 4 backs filled with key/mouse/audio/printer, 4 front as often as necessary) -- that one used to be a CD rewriter slaved on IDE2.

Daemon received it's usual 4 (KLMN). Mostly temp Isos and testing phases for compiler works. C++ or VB stiffers.

OPQR_ are carding callers once snapped in.

The essential are named... Core (140), Data(43,8), Extra(18,6), Filer(20,8), Games(227 **GC2, btw)

D_ata; gets all & each personal files - no programs, all graphics reference stuff and right now, the GalCiv2 mods i'm developping.

E_xtra; Audio, Video, Drawing, Coders, 3D... programs only.

F_iler; All transitions... like Downloads, Uploads, a WRITE2CD & a WRITE2DVD drop zone folders growing and burnt out as often as needed. FTP searches, ImageShack files, Unzipped temporary, ISO, etc.

 

Of course, this is rather "unique" as everyone may have a totally different way of setting their systems.

B)

Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I have 4 hard disks in my computer, 3 PATA and 1 SATA, plus a PATA dvd burner and one FDD. Also have an external hdd.

Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My hp is fried...well the motherboard, power supply and a few other things are gone.


That's just about the same thing that happened to me in June this year. Now I have 2 HD's and it's great. Now a days it's essential. Wouldn't want it any other way. :)
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
What motherboard are they putting in this?


No motherboard...I already had a new pc, I just want to add anything from the old one that can be useful, to the new one, where there is lots of room. ;)

That's just about the same thing that happened to me in June this year. Now I have 2 HD's and it's great

:D :HOT:

Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
teddy, they may not be adding a new motherboard but the new system has a new motherboard in it. as yrag stated, most new motherboards have only one IDE controller. if your new system has an IDE harddrive and IDE CD-ROM drive, you won't be able to add your old HHD if it is an IDE drive. if the new system has a SATA HDD and your old HHD is an IDE unit, you're good. I'd bet money the new system uses a SATA harddrive. if the new system has a SATA drive and your old drive is SATA, you should be ok since most mobo's have multiple SATA controllers.
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top


Thank you very very much Snidely. *hugs* Thinking, maybe I would be better, just making it an external harddrive that I can plug in whenever I need it.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Something from the OP that no one addressed -- you may have a second copy of a program on the old drive, but if you don't re-install it, it may not work properly.  Some programs are pretty sensitive about this, some aren't.  I recommend reinstalling, copying any data over if you need it, and then reclaiming the space from the old drive.

Also, if you connect your old hard drive to the same IDE channel as the CD/DVD drive, the performance will be pretty bad.  The IDE channel operates at the speed of the slower device for moving data.

Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
In your power options you can set "TURN OFF HARD DISKS" after x amount of time,basicly it switches off any hdd that's not in use,it most probably does'nt save much in way of power but no point in having a drive continual spinning either,i use that option for my small 4GB 2ndry which is used as my pagefile
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I have 5 Hard Drives

2 Raptors in RAID (Internal)
1 500GB WDHDDSATA (Internal)
1 1TB WD HDDESATA (External)
1 250GB WD Laptop (Extenral

Holy crap...what are you, the archivist for the Library of Congress??

 

Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

...if the new system has a SATA drive and your old drive is SATA, you should be ok since most mobo's have multiple SATA controllers.

Exactly what my initial point was, explained properly this time by someone else. *_*

Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
The point still stands. You have to be very careful taking technical advice from other human beings. Especially ones you don't know. Its much safer to go to valid computer sites that have solid reputations for their information and reliability. That being said forums can be very helpful but all information should be taken with a grain of salt. Also double check everything you are told before ever implementing into your own machine for a wide variety of reasons.
Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top
The point still stands. You have to be very careful taking technical advice from other human beings. Especially ones you don't know. Its much safer to go to valid computer sites that have solid reputations for their information and reliability. That being said forums can be very helpful but all information should be taken with a grain of salt. Also double check everything you are told before ever implementing into your own machine for a wide variety of reasons.

yrag is knowledgeable and quite reliable.