Installing a secondary Sata 2 Harddrive (ANSWERED)

[BFM_Octane]

Well heloo thar.

Upgraded to the pro version of my last Gcard, also upgraded the PSU and hard drive, its all set up and running, im playing halo again w00tflakez0rs! But ive just remembered ive not copied everything over on USB storage off the old HD for my music. I wanna slap it in my computer with the new one. Got the cables and space for it. But i was wondering how to go about doing it, can i just plug and screw it in and switch on the comp and it recognising it all done all dusted, sweet, shibby wicked done?? Or do i have to go into the BIOS set up and do some shtuff?

Sata 2 dont have those lil black things at the back to switch it from primary drive to slave. My computer's mother board sets everything up automatically in the first place so all i had to do when i put it together was install windows and the same again with the new components this time round.

So if anyone knows if its just case of slap it in there and my MB will do the work for me and follow onscreen instructions? Or is it not so simple?

[Bleach]

what MoBo do u have? most MoBos should detect it automaticly on first startup.

HOWEVER

Windows still needs the drivers for the Sata Hard Drive that you are installing, so be sure to run the disk to format and install any Sata drivers on it or with ur MoBo disk install any of those if u havent already.

Bleach984

[MrMxyzptlk]

SATA doesn't matter: there is NO Master / Slave for SATA!

Also, note that ALL SATA DRIVES ARE REMOVABLE DRIVES! (But pls be sure to use the taskbar icon to assure any such removable devices are ready for removal first!) So, you can connect/disconnect them while your machine is running. (NOTE: Except for the SATA drive which holds your Windows folder!)

Just connect up all your SATA drives via USB/SATA cables and they'll all show up as drives in My Computer.

Hint: NAME EACH REMOVABLE DRIVE with a representative name - e.g. "Old Music", etc. - so you can know what youre moving where when you do they copying. (Note that I said "copying!" Do a copy and check the results BEFORE you delete anything off its source drive!)

GL!

[Forseti]

Also, note that ALL SATA DRIVES ARE REMOVABLE DRIVES! (But pls be sure to use the taskbar icon to assure any such removable devices are ready for removal first!) So, you can connect/disconnect them while your machine is running. (NOTE: Except for the SATA drive which holds your Windows folder!)

Ya I noticed that with my other PC that is on the fritz currently. I had partitioned the heck out of my main (And at the time only) SATA drive and it said they were all removable disks like USB drives. I was always worried that I was going to click one of them by accident. There is no real worry of that is there?

[Kozmo]

No - no worry at all, it's just an annoyance.
You can click the remove button all you want and nothing will happen because the there are files on the HDD that are being used by the computer.  Just try 'safely removing' a usb stick while you have a word document open for editing - same thing.
I see this myself - I have a SATA drive. Gets a bit annoying when you use a few usb devices dosn't it.  >:(

[BFM_Octane]

Thanx for the feedback, but one more thing before i plug it in.

Windows is also on this drive i wanna put in. Is that going to be a problem? Will my computer all of a sudden decide to boot up from the old drive?

[MrMxyzptlk]

Thanx for the feedback, but one more thing before i plug it in.

Windows is also on this drive i wanna put in. Is that going to be a problem? Will my computer all of a sudden decide to boot up from the old drive?

Um, yes, but it won't be (much of!) a problem IFF you've named the two Windows partitions uniquely! (So you can tell which one's which.....)

Best thing to do - if you have partition managment SW, that is - would be to "Hide" the extraneous parition BEFORE plugging it in.  That way Windows won't see it at all, and won't add it (permanently, &#^^%# Windows!) to your boot list.

Even if it does, NP: You can manually correct that later-on to stop the annoying query at every boot up....

Just be as sure as you can that you boot from the correct Windows partition (like try SafeMode booting once first?) because booting from the wrong one might yield strange results any number of ways when things get "put back together" later....

[Wízzßång]

Mxy, isn't SATA boot order determined in the BIOS?  There is a concept of primary/secondary SATA channels, but not primary/slave drives.  Any of them can be booted off, and the system bootup should try each one until it finds a bootable drive.  In my experience, when I plug a single SATA drive in, somewhere along the BIOS/boot screens I see that it recognizes the drive on one of the available channels.  It also sounds like the "current" drive is not a SATA drive, correct?  If so, and it is a PATA drive, those usually are first to boot before SATA.

Of course you can go into the BIOS, and in one of the screens, you can choose the hard drive boot order, to ensure that your current drive will always boot first.

[Bleach]

in terms of the sata order... on your mother board it should say something like Sata_1 Sata_2 etc.. your MoBo will check 1 first then 2 and so on in my experience it will load off of an ide hard drive before a Sata drive, so make sure that in your bios like  said, change the boot order to Sata first then Ide

[MrMxyzptlk]

Yes, but there are two problems with "using" the BIOS setup to set boot order for SATA drives:

1) There is NO WAY TO TELL which drive is which in the BIOS except by the cryptic device numbers.  (So you can only tell which is which by the manufacturer info.  If the two drives are the same manuf & size, no way....)

3) ALL SATA DRIVES are REMOVABLE DEVICES to Windows, so their "order" can change at any time....

[Bleach]

that wasnt exactly what I was saying above... I was trying to say if you are planing to use a SATA to boot off of then you should use the bios to make a nonsata harddrive(I believe they are called IDE hard drives) AFTER a SATA hard drive interms of type of hard drive boot order.

I have 3 exaclty the same SATA 300gb hard drives and I know that it is impossible to differentiate between them 

[MrMxyzptlk]

[Well, then thats not "changing the SATA [boot drive] order," is it? ...]

When changing the general HDD boot order, yes, one would have to alter that order as a setting in the BIOS.

And another thing: If you DO have a SATA + PATA and are booting off the SATA drive, SOME BIOSes DO NOT SAVE THAT SETTING INFO EVEN IF YOU BACK UP THE CMOS SETTINGS to an external device! 

I've seen some ECS (low end MoBos) that need to have the SATA/PATA boot order reset even after a restore of all it BIOS/CMOS setttings from a floppy!      >:(

What a pain!