Installing a 2nd HD (NOT RAID)

[Caveman]

Building a new system with a SATA drive for boot and an IDE drive for data on an NF3 Neo Plat2 MoBo. I plan to do the following in numerical order:

1) Boot and flash to latest bios
2) Install OS
3) Install SP1 and update "rollup" (don't want SP2)
This will install DirectX9.1b right?
3) Install latest NForce driver
4) Install video drivers
5) Install sound drivers
6) Install peripherals and other similar drivers

BUT... Got the following advice from another AT Poster:

Just make sure that the SATA drive is the only hard drive connected, so Windows will assign it drive C. I've read about folk having problems with installing an OS who had both an IDE and SATA drive connected at the same time. Windows kept assigning the IDE drive as C:, rather than the SATA.

So... The question is...

At what point do I plug in that 2nd drive? Do I wait until I get the first drive up and running with the OS and then format the IDE drive? What I really don't understand is if the IDE drive just needs to be formatted or whether it needs an OS to. All it's for is storing data.

If it just needs formatting, will I be prompted after I plug the IDE drive in?

 

[Jiggz]

Install the IDE on step 7! If you need to format it, do it in explorer! You don't need OS to be in the HDD to format it. If you need to create partitions on the IDE, you can use the Win XP cd. Boot from it and then go up to the point of creating partitions and formatting and then cancel installation. Your done.

 

[Caveman]

Seems to make sense... But... It seems like Win XP Home would be "smart enough" to "know" I just plugged in a new piece of Hardware and want to install a driver for it or prompt me to format the new IDE that it recognized...

 

[Baked]

Why, are you planning on formatting the IDE HD w/ FDISK in DOS? It's just easier to format a HD with Disk Management in OS. For an unformatted HD, plug it in, start system, OS will detect recognize the HD but will not prompt you to do anything. You will have to go to control panel > admin tools > computer management > disk manangement. you'll see the new HD in black while the OS HD in blue. Right click the black bar of the new HD, initialize and partition. A wizard window will pop up, go through it and you're done.

 

[Longkid]

Originally posted by: Baked
Why, are you planning on formatting the IDE HD w/ FDISK in DOS? It's just easier to format a HD with Disk Management in OS. For an unformatted HD, plug it in, start system, OS will detect recognize the HD but will not prompt you to do anything. You will have to go to control panel > admin tools > computer management > disk manangement. you'll see the new HD in black while the OS HD in blue. Right click the black bar of the new HD, initialize and partition. A wizard window will pop up, go through it and you're done.

HAHA, i was typing the exact same method. def the easiest.

 

[Caveman]

Okay... Sounds easy enough... I'm a noob at multiple HD things and wasn't sure how to proceed...