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I WANT to take out my now VERY FULL 20 gig hard drive and replace it with an 80. Load up Windows and such. Then put the 20 gig back in as a slave for a Linux install and perhaps another Windows install to save music and images in. But I was just reading an article that said I would need a "controller card" ( I think I know what that is and I have a number of unused PCI slots). I dont want to set up a RAID system for splashing the data between both HDs so would I need a controller card for what I want to do?

sytem specs:
Dell Dimension
P3 866
512 RAM
PC133 bus
AGP slot with an ATI card in it
WinMe (and happy with it)
DVD-ROM
CD-RW
ZIP drive
floppy drive


"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

You don't need a controller card for that. I just did that in one of my client's computers last week. You do however, either have to set up the jumper in the rear of the Hard Drives so each hard drive knows its role or set them up as Cable Select. I find setting the jumpers to Master and Slave is easier than the whole Cable Select thing. But that's just a personal preference. Let us know if you need more detailed help.

And let's not get back onto that whole Master and Slave terminology thing when it comes to computers. Damn, that's annoying! <img src=icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>

Boomer still dont have your address send it to me. Suse online store screwed up my order all I can send right now is 8.1 pro. Or you can ftp down the 9.0 pro for free at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/9.0/ 9.0 will dual boot nicely with widows is you use the fat-32.

Matt

TG can you tell me how sure you are that it will work (the master slave thing, and yeah I was gonna set the jumpers) I'm getting conflicting info. Another guy says that with 4 IDE drives already on WinME, that I will need a card to add a 5th IDE.

Matt, thanks I can wait till you send me the new SuSe, my dial up would never make THAT download lol. Send me an Email and then I can just respond to make sure you get it boomer@fidmail.com .Just checked to be sure and I am using the FAT32 (I think the NTFS or whatever is for XP)

Thanks for ALL the help guys!

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Damn,

You already have 4 devices on your IDE. Didn't notice that before. I would imagine that with the age of your computer (and hence motherboard) that the MB itself is not going to support any more IDE devices. So, yes, you will probably have to get a controller card. Sorry for misleading earlier. I didn't take a close enough look at your setup. You're probably looking at 30-40 bucks for a card (the cards usually come with IDE cables).

I would however suggest that once you set everything back up, put both your hard drives on the same IDE cable (primary) and let the ZIP run off the card.

Of course, you could always let me build you another computer! <img src=newicons/anim_bannana.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=newicons/anim_bannana.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=newicons/anim_bannana.gif border=0 align=middle>

been having one prob after another all this weekend with the puter grrrr. Thanks TG the idea of letting the zip run off the card is a good one . Gonna change the board battery too when I open the case for all this other stuff, hope that's the cause of at leaste some of the other probs. Is there anything I should know about a controller card? Things to stay away from etc? There is no local puter supplier around so I'll have to go mail order.

My sim company is supposed to be buying me a mid-range puter next month but I want to use this one for personal stuff and let the new one just do sim work for the project. BELIEVE me, if I had the $,$$$ I'd love for ya to build me a new one, I get the limp lip drools whenever I see the Alienware systems. <img src=icon_smile_tongue.gif border=0 align=middle>

Thanks again for the help <img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle>

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Boomer,

There's really nothing to stay away from as far as the PCI to ATA cards go. It's a relatively proven technology and pretty hard to screw up (from a manufacturers point of view). But there's always the odd non-working card. Nothing that can be done about that.

I now what you mean about Alienware. A client came to me with that same Alienware drool. I built him the same system for a grand less than Alienware was charging. Since he was set on spending the money anyway, he also got himself a 20" LCD to go with it and still saved a few hundred over Alienware. The things you can do with low overhead...

Let me know if you need any more help. I'd be happy to quote you a price for the card also (you can email me at tinygiant@earthlink.net).

yeah but did he get the cool box ROFL.
I will be Emailing you about the card, I might as well spend my meager funds with a freind (whom I can later track down and whack LOLOL) as with some website of questionable breeding!

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Well, you know it's either the "cool" computer case (which I don't consider to be that cool) or save a thousand bucks. I'm sure those with overflowing pockets will spend the extra grand, but I'd rather save the money and go with a normal case. I throw the cardboard box away anyway.

hey someone just mentioned that my ZIP might be running off the floppy?(and thus still have room for 1 more IDE) How can I check this?

( I have to say I truly wonder about the ones who put the neon tubes and such inside the clear boxes, mine is on the floor under a desk, all I ever see is the CD trays and the power light)

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

this may or may not be pertinant. I have screenies of my boot screens (tech reps seem to like that) and the "IDE config" screen says

IDE controller...................[Both]

Primary IDE master............[Maxtor my hard drive]
Primary IDE Slave..............[Iomega zip 100]
Secondary IDE Master........[NEC my DVD ]
Secondary IDE Slave..........[Sony my CD-RW]

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Looks like they're all filled up to me! Let me give a holler to one of my builders and see what he thinks. I'll let you know when I get home from work today.

rgr that, and thanks again.

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

all my thanks to Tiny Giant!!

I FINALLY got around to putting the controller card that TG got for me in for the zip drive (I'm still not ready for the new hard drive yet).

Scared me at first cause Windoze wouldent load at all. Then I changed the jumper from "cable select" to "slave" and all is well.

Thanks TG <S

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Matt, did they ever get your SuSe order straightened out?

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Glad I could help.