2 Hard Drive Questions

[wirm]

Hi,

I have a Dell Dimension 2400, and I just recently cracked it open to find that there is only one slot for a hard drive, and it’s taken. Aside from simple switching of hard drives once or twice, I have no real knowledge of how it works. :bounce:

I was wondering, what would happen if I switched the cables (the current one goes straight from motherboard to HD with no slave connection in the middle) and just laid the second hard drive at the bottom of the computer case? (not screwed in place) Would the hard drive spin around hitting stuff when it’s active, overheat, or just plain not work?

Also, I’ve seen somewhere that hard drives over a certain size (120 Gb?) don’t work with every system. I believe there’s some kind of controller (hardware or software?) in order for the computer to use it. :approve:

I don’t know if this helps, but my computer came with an 80 GB hard drive.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks

 

[Liquidlen]

I would not leave a loose HDD vibrating around on the bottom of the case.Look around your extra parts box for a pair of CDrom drive bay adapters brackets or some thing similar.Find a spot where you can get a little air flow .Drill and screw the mounts in place ,then mount the drive in them.
If memory serves ,Fat 32 has trouble reading past 132gigs something like that. As long as the Bios supports large disks , just partition the drive smaller., eg. 200 gig partitioned to 2 - 100 gigs .

 

[imitator1]

ah.. the dreaded dell.. they are always finding new and imaginative ways to stop us computer technicians from having an easy job, hdds dont spin as such as you are imagining, they do however vibrate violently depending on how old it is, they might be some space you can screw the hdd into , if not you should probly follow Liquidlen's advice :approve:

 

[Nodsu]

The drive will work just fine even when loose - just make sure you don't short anything on the drive or on the motherboard. I still recomment you secure it somehow, even duct tape will do (make sure you don't cover any breather holes on the drive).

When choosing a location for the HD try to place it so you don't block any obvious air flow routes.

 

[tdeg]

Is there a spare CDROM drive bay? You can pick of mounting brackets fairly cheaply to install an HDD into some of those. Some HDDs even come with those brackets.