I know that there is a post of 2 HardDrives, but I need to connect a third one!! Can it be done, and how, if so. Thanks
You prolly have 2 hard drives and some sort of CD/DVD drive. Take a look at the cable going to your optical drive... it should have an open connector on it. Try temporarily connecting your 2nd hard drive to this open connector (leave the optical drive plugged in too) -- if your computer recognizes all the drives you should be able to use that connector for a 3rd drive. JT
I think there are pci cards that allow you to connect ide devices. You could probably connect cd/dvd drives to ide/pci card and connect third drive to ide connector currently being used by optical drives. Iv'e heard of this being done but havn't actually tried it myself yet.
I think you should try connecting 3rd HD. The IDE controller allows "4 IDE devices"... don't know why 3 couldn't be HDs....
If you put a HD on the same channel as the optical drive, you may need to change the cable to a higher density 80 conductor cable for the drive to work properly.
Can you just get a USB or Firewire Hard Drive? Also, they make external cases that allow you to attach a normal hard drive to the case and then plug it in via USB or firewire. Are either of these options in your situation? Firewire (IEEE 1394) is extremely fast...
The fact of the matter is that I am running out of space on the two HDs that I have now. I have a thrid one (not external) thats 80 Gigs. I dont want to swap it for the old one, b/c I dont want to screw up all the references that I have to files, plus reinstalling all the programs on my comp is a bitch too. And I dont want to buy a new Firewire HD if I have a perfectly good one now. How much do they run on average anyway (60-100 Gig)?