Setting Your IDE Drives the Right Way

If you have a desktop computer which you bought around three years ago, chances are you have an IDE hard disk drive. Though this type of hard drive is now being replaced by the faster Serial ATA, or SATA, configuration drives, there are still a lot of computers that have IDE drives on them. As the years go by, there might come a time when you need to replace or add another IDE drive to your computer. In such case, you need to know how to set your IDE drive the right way.

IDE drives can easily be recognized by looking at the type of cable that connects them to your computer. As opposed to the SATA cable which looks like a flat electrical cord, IDE hard drives uses a wide, thin, and ribbon-like data interface cable called ATA-7 which usually has three forty-sockets, one at the end that connects to the motherboard, one near the middle and another one at the other end for each of the pins found at the back of your hard drive.

If you need to augment your storage space with another IDE drive, you have to configure it in such a way that one becomes the primary drive and the second one becomes the secondary drive. Naturally, you have to set the new drive as the secondary because your old hard drive contains the operating system for your computer. Well, that is unless of course you wanted your new IDE drive to hold your operating system in which case you have to set it as the primary or the master, but that would mean reformatting and installing the operating system on it, not to mention the drivers that your computer needs and a plethora of software applications that you use. If you want to make it simple, then you can just set the new drive as secondary storage.

At the back of each hard drive, there is a small area immediately to the right of the 40-pin socket that contains eight pins in a four-pair configuration. This is the master and slave, or the primary and secondary selector. You will normally find a small jumper in that selector. Look at the label on your hard drive and see the proper jumper configuration for master or slave. If you intend to have the new drive act as a slave, then just follow the configuration as shown by the illustration on the label of your hard drive.

Next, secure the hard drive on the drive bay of your computer, and then attach the unused forty-socket connector of the IDE cable to the back of the hard drive. Be careful not to push it forcefully to avoid damaging the hard disk pins. There is a notch guide on the connector so you would never go wrong. Attach the power and close the case of your computer. You can then power up your computer and enjoy the additional storage space.

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