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| Thread ID: 88388 | 2008-03-26 00:08:00 | Adding a HDD | Thebananamonkey (7741) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 652816 | 2008-03-26 00:08:00 | Hi all. My work is doing a big purge of their old Dells and I'm looking to take one to use as a file server for music and movies and such. It has one IDE HDD, and no expansion slot. I can get another one in there, and have the data cable to expand for that, but the PSU doesn't have another cable for it. Are there cables you can buy that expand an existing power cable? Kind of like a power board for HDD's if you get my drift? I know I can get a 750GB HDD for it, but I'm wanting a bit of expandability past that. 1500GB sounds pretty good to me! :drool |
Thebananamonkey (7741) | ||
| 652817 | 2008-03-26 00:19:00 | Yup, these (www.dse.co.nz) Is that what you mean?? Altho these are pretty flimsy. The pins (or the wires) in them have a habit of coming out. |
Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 652818 | 2008-03-26 00:24:00 | The problem with just adding molex splitters is the PSU probably doesn't have enough amps to handle it. Just stick a better PSU in it. |
pctek (84) | ||
| 652819 | 2008-03-26 01:57:00 | Just got some of those actually. Hopefully should do the trick... PSU should be fine methinks, as it doesn't have the CD and Floppy drives that it was designed for, extra HDD should work fine? I'm an Optimist... | Thebananamonkey (7741) | ||
| 652820 | 2008-03-26 21:14:00 | I think if its an older computer, check that it supports 48bit LBA, otherwise I think you might be stuck with it not recognising hard drives larger than 137gb. | utopian201 (6245) | ||
| 652821 | 2008-03-26 21:18:00 | Just got some of those actually. Hopefully should do the trick... PSU should be fine methinks, as it doesn't have the CD and Floppy drives that it was designed for, extra HDD should work fine? I'm an Optimist... You'll be fine. Just don't go sticking some power sucking graphics card in there. :p If you do get a big HDD (or any HDD for that matter) make sure you have adequate cooling in the case. They really don't like being hot. |
wratterus (105) | ||
| 652822 | 2008-03-26 22:28:00 | I think if its an older computer, check that it supports 48bit LBA, otherwise I think you might be stuck with it not recognising hard drives larger than 137gb. This might rain on my parade a bit. I don't know what the actual make of them is, as they don't seem to have any identifying tags. They were initially built for MS98SE and have Pentium III's in them. 100W PSU... Looked inside and can't see any definitive MoBo tags or anything, just a whole bunch of service tags. Is there an easy way to see if it supports this? Should it be in BIOS somewhere? |
Thebananamonkey (7741) | ||
| 652823 | 2008-03-26 22:34:00 | Once again, utopian is correct, however seagate hard drive to have software which places a layer over the drive at boot, providing access to the entire drive, however I'm not sure if you can get 750Gb IDE drives. I got 2 SATA 750GB yesterday for a NAS box! |
SolMiester (139) | ||
| 652824 | 2008-03-26 22:38:00 | You'll be lucky if it supports big hdds then, if 98 was on it before. You'll soon find out once the os is on the hdd, (if it gets that far), and the BIOS doesnt like the capacity, it'll crash the system everytime it gets into Windows. I've come across this myself. Till you find out what the brand/model of the mobo is, and see if theres a BIOS update for it (one that supports large capacity hdd's). Put some of those service tags in Google, and see what it comes up with I would get a better PSU too |
Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 652825 | 2008-03-26 22:47:00 | I can't see this comp being very upgradable, being a Dell and all, so no-go on PSU. Not looking for anything other than storage from it anyway. Basically it's going to be a NAS, except cheaper (free). Ascent do 750GB IDE drives for $260, which I'm pretty happy with. Except I do want to find out if it's going to work before I go spending money on it... If I bought a HDD from ascent and it didn't work on this system would they be likely to accept a return on it? | Thebananamonkey (7741) | ||
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