Windows 7: New Hard Drive

My HD is only 160 Gig and is about half full. Sooner rather than later I will need to get a second one. I had thought about this before I installed Win 7 as that would have been a good time, but talked myself out of it. == Anyway, when I do get a second one, is there anything to do other than set the jumper, connect the controller and plug in the power. Do I need to do anything in the Bios or does it automatically detect the new HD when I reboot? Thanks,

it's all auto
=)
if get sata disc you'll probably won't need set jumper also.

No, with a SATA drive it's pretty much plug it in and go.

There is some chance your motherboard won't support large drives. The newer your motherboard, the less likely that is to happen. If you have issues, you may have to flash the bios to gain support for the full capacity. Wouldn't hurt to check your motherboard manufacturer's site to see if there are newer bioses and if they are known to fix any issues related to drive recognition.


But---You should do a full format, which also runs checkdisk to examine for bad sectors and errors. It takes 3 or 4 hours on a 1 TB drive. Do this before committing anything to the drive.

Ideally, I would put copies of stuff you can stand to lose on the drive and give it a good workout (copying files and folders, deleting files and folders, etc) for 50 or 100 hours if you can before entrusting stuff to it. Drive failures tend to occur early in their life or late ("bathtub curve" if you can imagine that). If the drive survives its earliest days, it has a good chance of lasting a long time.

Thanks for all of the info. I believe my present one is IDE. Do I need to get the second one IDE also? How can I check to confirm it is IDE? Thanks,

A couple of ways:


I googled your motherboard and found this:


Motherboard Elite 671T-M (V1.0) Motherboard Elite 671T-M (V1.0)

671T-M is one of the most advance and unique modules of ECS production. It can also support latest Intel ® Core™2 Duo/ Celeron D processors, up to 1066MHz FSB,DDR2 667, two serial ATA and 8 USB 2.0 ports for features. It can also support latest Intel ® Core ™ 2 Duo / Celeron D processors, up to 1066MHz FSB, DDR2 667, two serial ATA and 8 USB 2.0 ports for features. With embedded Mirage3 Graphics, 256M share memory and one PCI ExpressX16 slot, all these advance supports, we believe your computer can run with best performance and bring you the great value and enjoyment.

That indicates 2 SATA ports. But it could be wrong.

So you should consult the manuals that came with your PC.

You may have an IDE drive now, but you could certainly change to SATA if you in fact have SATA ports.

If you currently have an IDE drive, you could use IDE and SATA simultaneously.

Most people would point you to SATA if possible because the cabling is neater in the case. IDE is an older interface.

You can also open the case and see what type of cables are connected to the hard drive. IDE cables are over an inch wide and flat like a man's belt, with dozens of fine ribs running lengthwise.

More info from ECS website:

ECS Web Site

which says you have ports for 2 IDE devices and 2 SATA devices:

CPU
LGA775 socket for latest Intel Core 2 Duo / Pentium D / Pentium 4 / Celeron D processor
Support Hyper-Threading Technology

CHIPSET
SiS® 671 & 968
North Bridge: SiS® 671
South Bridge: SiS® 968

GRAPHICS
SiS Mirage 3 graphic engine
Share Memory: Maximum up to 256MB

MEMORY
Single-channel DDR2 memory architecture
2 x 240-pin DDR2 DIMM socket support up to 4 GB
Support DDR2 667/533/400 DDR2 SDRAM

EXPANSION SLOT
1 x PCI Express x16 slot
1 x PCI Express x1 slot
2 x PCI slots

STORAGE
Support by SiS 968
2 x Ultra DMA133/100/66 devices
2 x Serial ATAII 3.0Gb/s devices
RAID0 & RAID1 configuration

AUDIO
Realtek ALC660 6-channel audio
Compliant with HD audio specification

LAN
Broadcom AC131 10/100 Lan Phy

REAR PANEL I/O
1 x PS/2 keyboard & PS/2 mouse connectors
4 x USB ports
1 x VGA port
1 x Serial port (COM1)
1 x RJ45 LAN connector
1 x Audio port

INTERNAL I/O CONNECTORS & HEADERS
1 x 24-pin ATX Power Supply connector
1 x 4-pin ATX 12V connector
1 x IDE connector
1 x FDD connector
2 x USB 2.0 headers support additional 4 USB Ports
2 x Serial ATA connectors
1 x Front panel audio header
1 x CD in header
1 x Front panel switch/LED header
1 x SPDIF out header

CPUFAN/SYSFAN connectors

SYSTEM BIOS
AMI BIOS with 4Mb Flash ROM
Supports Plug and Play 1.0B, APM 1.2, Multi Boot, DMI
Supports ACPI revision 1.0 specification

FORM FACTOR
Micro-ATX Size, 244mm*220mm

Thanks Iggy for your research. Now that I think about it, I do have the ribbons so mine is IDE. The drives are so cheap now, it seems a shame not to have a big one. == This was in the early 1990's, I remember it was a big deal when the price of hard drives got below a dollar a meg. A 200 meg drive was over $200. How times have changed.

You are probably right about your HD being IDE, but you ought to look anyway. It is possible although unlikely that your DVD/CD drive is on the ribbon cable and your HD is on a serial cable.

More likely, both your HD and DVD are on the same ribbon cable.

I just paid $99.99 for a 1.5 TB drive and remember paying $250 for a 5.7 GB drive about 12 years ago--2.5 times as much money for less than 1/2 of 1% of the capacity. A lot slower, too.

I have about 235 GB of data now. Not surprisingly, over 95% of that is music, pictures, and video. Without that stuff, I'd never have to change hard drives barring a failure.

I still have the receipt for a 730MB Western Digital drive that I purchased for $359. At the time, it was a steal. I also remember the first 16MB SIMM memory module that I got for under $200.