Installing a Western Digital Drive - ATA/100
It's not a difficult task to install a Western
Digital drive. However if you are adding the drive as a new
primary master and re-installing the operating system then it
becomes a little more tricky. The first thing to realise is
that the interface for the ATA/100 is the 40 pin type ribbon cable.
Always ensure that you are ordering the right sort of drive
(interface and supported by your motherboard) for your PC.
When physically installing the drive remember
that you may need fixing screws (not supplied) and it is better if
you are keeping your original hard disk to order them in the drive
bay with the primary drive at the top (or beginning) of the drive
stack. This will help identify which drive is which when you
come back in a few years time!
The next thing to check and set if needed is
the position of the jumper switches on each of the installed drives.
If the detection method used is 'cable select' then the primary
master must use the connection at the end of the cable. If you
are using this method ensure the jumpers are set to 'cable select'
on all of the installed drives. Otherwise the jumper on the
primary drive must be set to 'master' and all the other drives set
to 'slave'. You can sometimes set the boot device order in the
BIOS to choose the drive order for the boot sequence.
The OS installation CD should boot from the CD
drive and then ensure you choose the correct drive to
partition/format. Continue to install the OS and hopefully all
will go to plan. Data and settings can then be copied from the
original boot disk to the new. The Western Digital Caviar
drive is a good choice for ATA/100 interfaces and is well priced on
Amazon. These drives are becoming 'older' now and may be more
difficult to find and be more expensive in the future.
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