Hard Drives /How Many?

How many hard drives can you put on a windows xp system. I currently have 120gb internal and 160gb external and they are getting pretty full and someone gave me a 80gb internal and I was just wondering if possible and how to do it hope someone can help me, with many thank you s in advance.........confusedconfused

 

i dont think 3 is pushing it, i dont think there even is a limit?
but why not just get a 500gb or larger? then you dont have it all split up.
Now that i think about it i dont think there is a limit to the amount for windows Its limited to how many ports you have on your mother board for internal and usb ports for external.
Most modern mother boards have 2-4(sometimes more) sata ports and 1 or 2 ide ports (2 devices each) if there is 2 one is ussualy for optical drives the other hard drives. So you will be fine, unless you have a pc from a big company like dell or hp that is a low/mid model, because they usually don't have room for another hard drive or a cable that supports another hard drive, but it is possible to install one in them i could explain how if this is the kind of pc you have, i could walk you through installing it if you need the help. Im not sure how new you are to all this stuff so if it seems a little basic im sorry.

ps: if you have a computer from a major manufacturer it would be a good idea to post the make and model

 

As an aside remember that each additional HDD will have a power requirement. If you have a board with 2 IDE controllers and 2 SATA controllers then so far you are up to 6 HDD. You can also purchase a PCI add-on card for more HDD.

However whilst one or 2 extra drives would be ok, if you suddenly installed 6 new HDD then depending on your PSU this could cause power issues.

In respect of the adding an additional 80Gb HDD, which I guess would be used for data, then I would suggest the following.

1. Connect the HDD to the desired controller on mobo ie PATA or SATA
2. Jumper the drive drive correctly if using PATA
3. Zero fill the drive with the manufacturers utility
4. Format
5. Boot system and go to bios to check drive has been correctly detected.
6. Boot to windows and check that XP has detected it and allocated drive letter
7. Copy the data onto new drive

Good Luck

 

That and the motherboard has something to do with it, unless you get extra PCI drive interfaces. Most motherboards have 2 interfaces, each can handle 2 drives. One of those drives have to be a CD (not an absolute requirement, but close), so in practical terms 3 is it. Most minitower cases can handle around 5-6 drives, so no problem there.

 

the thing about small coputer cases from big manufaturers is that they can
only have one harddrive bay, like in this picture but an empty floppy bay is an option, manufacters also sometimes make kits for another harddrive to fit. http://www.nvnews.net/articles/dell/chassis.jpg

 

My computer is a Dell Dimension 3000, neither of the hard drives that are in the puter are oem, one is internal and one is external, and I do had cables to hook up the newest one either internally or externally, I do not care about that part of it..

 

Nice picture, but most of the cases I've dealt with have a lot more slots, modern and older. The 5 1/2 bays also can be used easily with easy to find adaptors. Finding slots shouldn't ever be an issue. In the last year I've bought 2 cases. Lifetime, well over 40. Most cases will allow 1 hard drive mounted under the 3 1/4" floppy, and 2 more under that. Do my eyes decieve me, or does that picture show a hard drive mounted vertically where a fan usually goes?

I will clarify I tend to build from scratch, and not buy any prebuilt brands.

A fairly new computer (5 years old or less) should be able to handle 3 hard drives just fine. The likely drive letters will be C: D: and E:, with the CD becoming F: . The problems you are likely to run into is the HD sharing the CD will be slowed down a bit, but very usable, and strapping of Master/Slave options.

If you ever want to add MORE hard drives this is doable too, with the addition of PCI card that is a drive interface. These interfaces look like SCSI drives to the computer but connect to IDE or SATA drives.

I have had a Win98 box that had 5 drives, and a NT box that had 7. It is awkward, but I understand the logic. Didn't miss them when they died of old age though, and with larger drives the need has gone away. This was on a 250W PSU for the former, a 350W PSM on the latter. I agree you have to worry about power supplies, but it can be overstated. For many many years 250W was the norm, and a lot was done around them. Nowdays the new video cards and CPUs are part of what is driving the higher ratings.