HD instead of CD-Rom?

[colintgall]

This is just kind of a curious question. I'd like to hook up a second hard drive to my computer, but there's only two SATA cables (I think that's what they are) coming out of my motherboard. One goes to the HD I have now, and the other to the CD drive. Is it possible to just unhook the CD drive and plug it into a second HD without any issues?

 

[Mimoso]

Yes, that should be no problem but you may have to change the boot settings in the BIOS if the computer tries to boot from the second hard drive.

 

[howardp6]

SATA cables have only connectors on the end of the cable, one connects to the motherboard and the other to the drive and they usually are a half an inch 12.5 mm wide and are "L" shaped. IDE cables have a connector that attaches to the motherboard and have two connectors for two drives and unless they are round IDE about 2.5 inches wide and are straight across.
What is the model number of your motherboard and or computer. If you have SATA connectors on your motherboard there may be more that two, so you may not have to disconnect your DVD drive and have addition SATA power connectors. The IDE drives also have four pin MOLEX power connectors. SATA drives have SATA power connectors, which are "L" shaped and about 7/8" wide. Some older SATA drives had both MOLEX and SATA power connectors, but the MOLEX connectors have been dropped from newer drives. As Mimoso indicated you may have to change your boot order in the BIOS either way. Yiou may mot see the second HD in your OS, if you have Windows, you may have to go to disk management and format the new HD and assign it a drive letter.

 

[sminlal]

It's probably obvious, but... Just because there are only two cables doesn't necessarily mean there are only two ports. Cables aren't normally connected to the motherboard unless there's a drive to connect them to. Look to see if there are any extra, unused ports beside the ones that the cables are connected to.

 

[colintgall]

Well look at that. Upon closer inspection, there were slots for 4 SATA cables, not just the 2 I saw. Everything seems to be in working order, and I didn't have to sacrifice my CD drive! Thanks guys!

 

[sminlal]

<Mr. Burns Voice> eeeexcellent! </Mr. Burns Voice>