# Adding a second harddrive



## trell (Mar 14, 2007)

I'm having a little trouble figuring out how to add a second harddrive to my Dell Dimension E520. I watched a tutorial vid but it kinda skipped over what the whole master/slave thing is all about. If someone here could walk me through it step by step (pictures would be a big big plus) I'd greatly appreciate it.


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

When you install 2 hard drives on the same IDE cable (the wide grey one), the master should be atttached to the end connector and the slave should be on the middle connector. Check the small plastic jumpers at the back of each drive and change their settings if neccesary.

If each drive is on a separate IDE channel, meaning one cable per drive, set the jumpers on both drives to master.

There is a small diagram on the hard drive label which tells you where to place the jumpers (circled below).


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## trell (Mar 14, 2007)

This is the inside. The top hard drive is the main one. The one beneath is the second one I'm trying to install. I don't see any of those thick, gray wires connected to the main hard drive. Do I have all of the cords I need or do I have to buy some?


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

It looks like you have SATA hard drives rather than the older IDE type. The wide, grey cable in the middle of your 2nd picture is an IDE cable and is probably connected to your CD/DVD drive. The blue one coming out of your hard drive is a SATA cable.

SATA drives don't have master/slave jumpers. You just install the new drive, then go to *Disk Management* to format it.


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## trell (Mar 14, 2007)

The first hard drive is a SATA hard drive, I forgot to mention that. It came with the new computer. The second hard drive I want to install is a IDE hard drive. How does having two different types complicate things?


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

You will need another grey IDE ribbon cable, the same as in your pictures. Connect this from the back of the drive to the motherboard connector (next to the other cable), either IDE0 or IDE1, whichever is free. As it's the only drive on the cable, set it to master.


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