Maxtor 60 GB and Maxtor 160GB setup.

[KnickFanRA]

Hey folks,

I just got a Maxtor 160gb hard drive, ata133. The drive was defective, and in the process of hooking it up, I am not sure what happened, but my old 60gb hd makes a clicking noise repeatedly when I turn it on, so I am assuming the drive is a dud... I sent it back to Maxtor, and I should be getting another one. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to best setup my machine with the following information?

I will have a ATA100 60GB Maxtor hd, ATA133 Maxtor 160GB hd. 1 CD-RW, 1 DVD-Rom, 1 Zip drive, 1 floppy drive. My mobo supports up to ATA100, and has two controller ribbon ports (pls the floppy controller). The problem I will run into is that I'd like to not have my HD's next to each other because of the heat generation, is that a problem? or is it ok to have them next to each other? Also, to get maximum speed from everything, which hd's should I put on which ribbons?

I know this is sort of vague, and I apologize for that, I am really new at all of this stuff. Any help would be greatly appreciated and I can answer any specific questions you may have.

Thanx

 

[EeyoreX]

First, to your heat question: IDE hard drives do not get all that hot. In my server box I have 4 drives next to each other in the lower drive cage. Two have been there for about 3 years. The other two are new. None has any problem. You can put the drives next to each other without worry. As for speed issues, as long as you use an 80 wire ribbon cable (or rounded, whatever. Just make sure 80 wire) you won't have any speed problems no matter how you connect your drives, as they are all going to run independantly of each other. The only exception is if one of the optical drives only runs in PIO. That'll slow things down. You will need a PCI IDE controller, however. Assuming your Zip drive is ATAPI IDE. If so, I would connect your drives like this:

Motherboard IDE1: DVD-ROM drive (Master)
Motherboard IDE2: CD-RW drive (Master)
Zip drive (Slave)
PCI Controller1: Boot hard drive (Master)
PCI Controller2: The other hard drive (Master)

To install this way, I would first get and install the PCI controller, boot into Windows, and install the drivers. Otherwise, you will have trouble booting to Windows.

\Dan

 

[KnickFanRA]

Hey Dan,

I took your suggestion and everything works perfectly!

Thanks a ton!

 

[EeyoreX]

No problem, glad everything worked out well!

\Dan