Genealogy Chat

Thank you all for your help, you make it sound so easy, I'll be sorting it next week (when I get paid) so will get back on here then, Thanks again.

Soon gets full doesn't it. The best thing to do is to buy another 'internal' hard drive. You can get another 100 gigs (That's lots and lots of space) for under £100. To fit it see this web site or pay someone to do it for you: (remove the *) http://www.helpwithpcs.*com/upgrading/install-hard-drive.htm An alternative - easy but more expensive and slower - is to buy an 'external' one which plugs into the back of your computer. Bob

Ah yes, the quotation marks problem - Victor meant two inches wide, not two feet!

J.P. Hi You should be able to add a hard drive to this without any problems. What I would suggest is that you turn off the power and unplug your PC. Take off the cover and look inside. Look at the back of your CDRW and you will find that there are two connections. One of them will be a ribbon of wires about 2' wide, this is the data cable. Trace this cable back to the motherboard (the large printed curcuit board) and see if there is a second cable. Contact me via PM when you have done this and I will talk more. Victor

my system is an emachines 270 with CDRW/DVD, dont know if thats any help, not very well up on computors, I've had this one (my first) for two years now, still dont know a lot about it.

Yes without seeing the setup can't say. Most fairly modern PCs will have two IDE channels each supporting two devices. If there is just one CD and and one HD then the normal set is one on each channel with the extra disk going as slave to the HD. Thats why I said to have a look inside for the spare connector on the HD ribbon. Auto detect BIOS has been around several years now so should be no problem. It's still easy in any event Bob

Robert It will depend on what is connected to the mother board as to what the second hard drive is set at. It could be master or slave dependent on what is connected to the data ribbon. For instance there could be a CD and a DVD/CD Writer connected. It would be best to connect it to the same ribbon as the original hard drive. Just thought. It will also depend on the age of the system as to how it will cope with another hard drive. It may automaticaly detect your slave hard drive, or it may have to be configured to accept it. If it is a resonably new system it should detect it automaticaly and set it up. Victor

It is really easy to add a slave hard drive, and cheap, you can get a 80GB drive online for ~£35. Almost certainly you will have an IDE drive (don't get a SATA the latest) there are only two push in connectors, data and power which only fit one way. And a 'jumper' on the back to set it to slave. Turn off the power (There is only low voltage inside so you are safe, the power off is to protect the PC) and remove the case cover (either side or full a few screws) and have a look inside.The hard drive will be below the CD and floppy drive. As Victor says there should be extra data and power connectors. There should be one or more spare bays below your drive, it just slides in and fastens with screws. Have a go and amaze yourself! Bob

J.P. Yes you can install another hard drive on most PC's but it will depend on what other equip you have on you PC's, such as CD/DVD drives you have. There are normally two connections to the mother board for adding on additional hardware. The hardware is connected to the motherbaard by ribbons and power sockets. There are normally enough power sockets to instal 4 lots of hardware, but sometimes there is only one ribbon installed. If you have two ribbons intalled then chances are you can just connect another hard drive to one of them. How modern is your PC ? Victor

Just nudged a thread from Judy in the states, titled,'1 Stop pc maintenance' lots of info regards pc's, hope this helps. Heather

I have a total of 37.3GB of disk space in total, but only have 5. something free, been through files etc;- but really need what I have got already as its not just my computor, all the family use it, can I buy further disk space for my computor, if I can is it easy to install, anyone know.