Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

[lakelover]

I am fairly computer-challenged when it comes to hardware. I had this idea and wonder if I could do it.

I have an old Dell Dimension E510 that I gave up on after sinking a couple hundred $$ into two failed repair attempts by a local repair shop. The computer kept randomly just shutting off with no warning. Cooling or motherboard were suspected, but I decided not to sink more money into it.

I currently have a Dell Inspiron 620. From what I've read, it only has one internal hard drive bay. I'm wondering if I can hook the hard drive from the E510 into my current Inspiron to use solely for storing digital images. I found this gizmo at newegg Rosewill RX-358 V2 BLK (Black) 3.5" SATA to USB & eSATA Ext. Enclosure w/Int.80mm fan - Newegg.com .

Would this be feasible? :noidea:

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

Just make sure you get the right enclosure for the drive you want to use as an external, I have done it with many drives over the years, Look for a SATA drive enclosure on Ebay, that is where I buy my enclosures, heck of a lot less expensive than New Egg. But no matter where you get the enclosure, you just slap the drive in it, plug in the power and plug in the USB cord to the back of your existing computer, it will recognize it and you will be able to use it to store stuff on, it will work just the same as a USB thumb drive.

All of my computers have externals on them, it is really one of the easiest upgrades there is.

One thing I will mention, I have never needed an external case with a fan, for the amount of use they get, the drives don't overheat.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

How old is the hard drive that you want to use for storage? If it's more than a few years old, I would buy a new drive and I wouldn't rely on it as the only storage. You need to store things at least twice for backup purposes.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

Another thing compare what it will cost to set this one up and what the new externals are going for, if I remember correctly, someone had a 1 TB external on sale this weekend for around $65.

 

[lakelover]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

I already have the photos on my hard drive, and also on CD's and DVD's. I was only figuring on using the hard drive as a backup.

The E510 is a 2005 computer.

If I do this, will I need to wipe the drive first? It has Windows XP on it, I'm now running Windows 7.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

9 years old is ancient for a harddrive.

 

[CharlieB]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

I have a couple of drives I don't often use. This kit lets me plug any drive into any USB, on either of my desktops or laptops.

USB 2 0 to SATA IDE 2 5" 3 5" External Adapter Transfer Cable Kit DVD Hard Disk | eBay

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

I already have the photos on my hard drive, and also on CD's and DVD's. I was only figuring on using the hard drive as a backup.

The E510 is a 2005 computer.

If I do this, will I need to wipe the drive first? It has Windows XP on it, I'm now running Windows 7.

Nope, you won't have to wipe anything out at all, you will not be using the OS that was installed on it, you are simply wanting to recover the data(pictures and stuff) that is on the drive. As for it being 9 years old, I would not worry about it, I have found the SATA drives to be far more reliable than the old IDE drives, I have never had a SATA fail on me, but I have had quite a few IDE drives fail over the years, in fact, I had a less than 3 month old WD IDE drive fail on me last summer. As this will not be a primary drive, it will not get the work out that a primary would get. If you decide to do this, I would make sure, the first thing I did, once hooked up, is get the data off of it that you want to save, then use it.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

I have had 3 SATA drives fail at 5 years or less. For how cheap a drive is, it's just not worth using a 9 year old drive.

Western Digital 1TB drive is $50.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...ffiliateID=lw9MynSeamY-1wLziaDBhOCaSz9HRNyONA

 

[lakelover]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

9 years old is ancient for a harddrive.

One thing to consider is that it has been sitting idle for 2.5 years...I guess 6.5 years is kind of old too.

As this will not be a primary drive, it will not get the work out that a primary would get. If you decide to do this, I would make sure, the first thing I did, once hooked up, is get the data off of it that you want to save, then use it.

I already recovered everything I want from the drive. If I use it, I'll most likely just first delete all my remaining files from it to free up space.

 

[MikDee]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

I just did this myself, moving the hard drive from my crashed windows XP desktop, to my new Windows 7 desktop. I have the old hard drive sitting on desk in a case, with all my old pix, & videos on it. Works for me.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

I have had 3 SATA drives fail at 5 years or less. For how cheap a drive is, it's just not worth using a 9 year old drive.

Western Digital 1TB drive is $50.
WD Blue 1 TB Desktop Hard Drive, Solid Performance for Everyday Computing - 3.5 - Sata 6 Gb/s, 7200RPM, 64MB Cache, 2yr Warranty - WD10EZEX at TigerDirect.com

The only Western Digital drive I will ever touch again, is the server rated WD black, I have had so many problems with WD drives, currently all of my drives except one are Hatachi, they seem to have the best reliability rating in the market, but again, I have had a lot of problems with WD, the 3 month old one that crashed last summer was a 1TB WD green, that sucker crashed and burned hard, WD offered to replace it and I opted to upgrade to the Black model for reliability.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

I already recovered everything I want from the drive. If I use it, I'll most likely just first delete all my remaining files from it to free up space.

Once you put it in an enclosure and plug it in, you will be able check what is on it that you forgot, then you will be able to just format and use as any other drive, pretty simple to do.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

I have a couple 2TB WD Greens in a RAID config in a Synology box. So far so good but might upgrade if they go south. Fortunately, they are in a RAID so if one crashes, I am not dead.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

I have a couple 2TB WD Greens in a RAID config in a Synology box. So far so good but might upgrade if they go south. Fortunately, they are in a RAID so if one crashes, I am not dead.

I just set up a Windows Server 2008 r2 on a Dell poweredge 1850 and it has a raid, I love it, one of the drives crashed and I didn't loose anything, I am now waiting for 2 new drives to upgrade it, it is an old machine, but they have continued to update it, so it will keep going for a long time to come.

 

[CharlieB]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

2 primary SATA's died within the last 2 years.

The second one is a Seagate 1T, still under warranty, I have to mail it in for a replacement. All data lost, but it wasn't much on there yet but the O/S. Thankfully.

They offer a data recovery, for a price. Good thing I don't need it, they ain't cheap.

Currently confige running an 80G primary for the OS and a2T secondary for data.

About to partition primary with O/S to a small size so I can make a bootable clone on a flash.

All critical data on secondary are copied to flashes, update regularly.

After two primary failures in the last couple of years I am seriously learning the importance of back-ups!

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

I learned the importance of backups over 25 years ago and I can say, you guys have really bad luck! Of course I won't purchase Seagate drives either!

I will add, all of our critical stuff is backed up off site, on one of our redundant servers, that has a raid in it, it would take a nuke to loose all of our data, learned this a long time ago, when my wife started her internet business, and will let you know, Carbonite is actually a great service that don't charge an arm and a leg!

 

[lakelover]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

At the time I had the trouble with the old computer, the question entered my mind if some virus could have been causing the abrupt shutdowns. That was never mentioned as a possibility by the local repair shop, however, I did do several complete anti-virus/anti'malware scans using more than one AV program with negative results.

Is that even a possible or likely thing, and for that reason, might it be a good idea to format the hard drive before hooking it up to the new computer?

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

Is that even a possible or likely thing, and for that reason, might it be a good idea to format the hard drive before hooking it up to the new computer?

Sure...wouldn't hurt. Hopefully, those files you already took off were not infected.

 

[lakelover]

Re: Adding a second hard drive - Is this possible?

Sure...wouldn't hurt. Hopefully, those files you already took off were not infected.

No, I took them off in 2011. After formatting, do I need to do anything to the HD before putting files on?