Added second hard drive

On one of my computers(which is an older model by todays standards)I added a second hadr drive to give myself some added storage space.I set the jumper to slave on the second drive,connected the slave end data cable coming from the primary ide controller.Everything seems to be ok,my added drive shows up in the cmos ok.I went into the drive and checked out what all was contained on it,I've already deleted everything that I know is ok to do so.I changed it over to fat32,without any problems.I've already freed up a lot of room on it.I've read where I should format the drive so that it's 'usable',but I'm already using it.Can someone tell me what I need to do next? I know if I do format the new drive I'll lose any information on it.All that I really want to be able to do is use the second drive for storage.I hope that I have both the jumper on my original drive set correctly to master,it was kind of unclear to me,but it appeared to be set correctly,besides I've been using that drive by itself for a long time.It does show correctly in the setup area.Thanks for your help.
David W.

 

If you have been able to access the drive and delete files/directories from it you should not have to format it. I assume it is showing up as your "D:" drive?

As you have deleted a bunch of stuff from it it may be in need of a scandisk and defrag just to clean it up. You can run both of these from Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Scandisk and Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter. (This is from the Win98SE start menu). If you have a different O/S location of these utilities might be slightly different.

Just select "D" drive when you run the scandisk and defrag.

Just one more thought, you might want to start your computer in Safe mode prior to running scandisk and defrag to have no programs running in the background in order to allow scandisk and defrag to run without interference. Use the "Standard" scandisk setting (default). Thorough scandisk takes about 8 hours +-.

 

Thanks SO MUCH for your reply..
Thanks for not thinking that I was too dumb to really know what to do with my added second drive.I've never had a computer with two hard drives in it before.I've been reading some interesting articles online concering hard drives dealing with partitioning them.As far as I know,neither one of the drives on my computer are that way,unless I read the articles incorrectly,that gives you more room.As far as your response,(which by the way is GREATLY appreciatted)I really don't need to save much of the information that's still on my second drive,one of the items is windows,so far I haven't been able to determine which version that it is.I know on my master hard drive,all I have to do is go into control panel,click on the system icon,and when it opens it displays what version of windows is installed.I can't do that on my slave hard drive,at least I haven't figured out how to do so.To be able to store files on the slave drive,don't I have to leave a operating system,if I didn't,of course that would give me a LOT more storage space.In some ways I wish I could just send you an e-mail message instead of posting where everyone can view it.Oh well,I guess people realize and understand that nobody is perfect,that's the reason for these message boards.Thanks again SO MUCH..

 

David:

No you are NOT dumb for asking for info before doing something to your computer. This could save you many hours of headaches and time.

If you don't need any of the info left on that second drive, including the O/S I would be tempted to just format it get rid of everything so you can start all over with a clean slate, so to speak.

You should be able to format it from a DOS prompt by entering the command : C:\ format D: /u this assumes the second drive is D drive. The /u is an unconditional format and will wipe every thing. You should end up with a clean drive which you can then set up as you wish with it's own directory structure. (I havn't done this in a while so maybe if my directions are slightly off someone else can chime in here.)

Re the e-mail - the members of the BBS like to see the responses posted on the BBS that way we can all learn and profit from each others information/trials/tribulations and successes.

 

John,
I'm SO greatful for all of the help that I get in these forums. I'm just waiting to make sure that I've deleted / moved any files that I was interested in . If I were to format the slave drive 'd' how would I go about storing files there. I know that I don't need to keep the operating system that's on that drive,besides I haven't been able to determine which version of windows that it is,because the only way that I know how to do that is go into control panel,click on the system icon,and when the next window opens the needed information is displayed.I hope all of this made sense.Thanks again..
David W.

 

Once you format the slave drive you can store files directly on it. You should establish some form of directory layout so everything is not put under the root directory D:\. In the Windows Explorer or My Computer>D:\ drive go to File>New>Folder and create as many folders as you require. For example you could make folders for Documents, Pictures, etc. and sub folders under those. It's the same as doing it on your C:\ drive.

On thing more, and it may not work, to see what O/S is on that slave drive you could try booting to DOS from a restart (keep hitting CTRL key or F8 while computer is booting) and then from the menu that comes up select "Command Prompt Only" then when the computer boots to the command promt C:\ change to the D drive by typing D: next to the prompt, it should change to D:\ then type "win" (no quotes) and see if it boots to Windows from that drive. Then you could look at the My Computer properties to see what Version the O/S is.

If nothing happens or the computer hangs or freezes just Ctrl-Alt-Del or turn your computer off then back on to reboot normally.