Can i mix two different types of hard drives? I currently have a sata 80gb, not sure what speed (how can i find out?) and the one i want to purchase is an ultra ATA 7200 rpm hdd. Also if i can mix them will the two combine storage capacities or would i have to boot up each disk seperately?
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Re: Can i mix hard drives?
ATA and SATA are two things seperate.
The two drives will not work together in RAID very well, if at all.
If you have a free SATA port consider getting a SATA drive. -
Re: Can i mix hard drives?
If i understand RAID correctly, then its not necessary. I just want to be able to plug it in and be able to see both the drives in windows explorer under the same windows installation. Is this possible?Originally posted by Heavy552(AWG)Comment
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Re: Can i mix hard drives?
I think that may be possible...you may have to manualy add new hardware and maybe it will detect it, I don't know.Comment
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Re: Can i mix hard drives?
Mixing two different types of drives in RAID is not a good thing. But if you can get another sata, I would just go with that and leave the IDE open for a CD drive or something... the transfer rate is faster and they cost like $1 more than the IDE version, sometimes they are less.
If you don't use RAID, which I don't think you should with different models of HDDs, then there will just be two hard disk drives in My Computer, most likely labeled as C: and D:. I don't believe you should have to have it recognized through the device manager or anything, but you will have to format the new drive with the NTFS file system.
I have two hard drives (not in RAID) right now, so yeah, it's certainly possible :)Comment
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Re: Can i mix hard drives?
I've got two IDE drives and two Sata ones all working together. One has games on it and a couple of others have movies and I've partitioned one into 3 drives. One for C drive one for music. Been running for over a year now.Comment
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Re: Can i mix hard drives?
Will i need to get a new copy of windows?Comment
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Re: Can i mix hard drives?
nope
apparently that message is too short to post by itself, so I'm adding this :)Comment
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Re: Can i mix hard drives?
Windows will let me format the drive without a new windows key?
Also, thanks to everyone for the quick and informative replies, officedepot has a sale for an 100gb HDD for 80 bucks with a 70 dollar rebate and free shipping.Comment
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Re: Can i mix hard drives?
If you are just adding the drive you just need to (re)format the drive and you are set. If you want to install WinBlows on that drive you might or might not have to re-activate your copy of windows, changing a harddrive is considered a major change by windows. In neither case would you need a new key. Assuming you delete windows from the other drive.
I have been running 2 IDE drives and a SATA drive with no issues.Comment
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Re: Can i mix hard drives?
Don't see where the OP ever mentioned anything about RAID or SATA, yet just about everyone assumed/offered advice on those two things. What he did say he was looking at is a 100 gb U/ATA drive.
spyro you don'y have to re-install Windows if you add a new hard drive, unless you plan on installing Windows onto that drive. Just make sure that it is jumpered to Slave and plug it into the same cable that your current drive is on (making sure the original is set to Master). Then it is just a matter of making sure that the new drive is detected in the bios correctly.
Next boot to Windows and co to Computer Management (right clickon My Computer and select Manage), click on Disk Management and find the new drive (should be listed as Raw) and format and partiton it (if you want any partitions on it) from there.
If the above doesn't work then you will need to format the drive before loading Windows. If the drive is in a retail package it should come with a bootable floppy or cd that will have the necessary tools on it for formatting. If it is an OEM drive, then check the manufacturers site for the tool (Seagate, Maxtor and WD all have disk tools available for download).Comment
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Re: Can i mix hard drives?
I was just looking at hard drives today in the store and we are seeing 750 GB hard drives for around 450- availible now.Comment
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