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General discussion

Adding extra hardware

Feb 22, 2004 5:25PM PST

My motherboard, like a lot of others has two IDE ports, both of which have two lots of hardware attached, how do I add yet more? I have two hard drives attached to one and one cd-rom and one zip drive on the other and I wish to install a new DVD drive.

Discussion is locked

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Re:Adding extra hardware
Feb 22, 2004 8:20PM PST

You can add a PCI IDE controller, or RAID controller to your computer. That would give you 2 additional channels with 2 devices per channel.
computerdag

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Re:Re:Adding extra hardware
Feb 22, 2004 8:36PM PST

I agree. You will need to add an additional IDE controller. You will need a free PCI slot on your motherboard for this.

Alternatively your ZIP drive may have a parallel interface which can be plugged into the systems printer interface but this is not as good an idea as an additional IDE controller card.

Also you may want to reconsider the need for a ZIP drive. Mine is history now. I have moved all my backup data to CDRW CD's. They are only a

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Re:Re:Re:Adding extra hardware
Feb 22, 2004 9:55PM PST

IDE zip drives never come with a Parallel interface, that is a different product, you buy either the parallel or the IDE zip (or the SCSI or USB).

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Re:Adding extra hardware
Feb 23, 2004 12:39AM PST

Thanks very much for your answers - I think that a PCI IDE controller is the way to go...I don't want to ditch my zip drive - it is still working and I see no reason not to use it just because it's over 3 years old and may be "out-of-fashion". I can't seem to buy 650mb (70min) CD's now!!! Very soon you will only be able to get DVD discs!!! Sorry, I'll get off my soap box now...thanks again for your help.
Phil

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Re:Re:Adding extra hardware
Feb 23, 2004 2:16AM PST

I'll join you on the soap box. I don't want to take the time to transfer files. I also like the idea I can modify a file without complete new burn on a cdrw.

My only concern is with system upgrades losing the back ward compatiblity. I have a 100mb on an older, still useful machine and a 250mb on my newer machine. Also have cd players with both. I had to buy "Toast, T" because I have the old cd reader that couldn't read newer cd's. Worried what Iomega is going to change code and present a challenge (besides requiring storm trooper surveillance to reload software to a crashed system, as bad as Intuit tax program and MS everything.--My soap box. Sorry is this a personal attack or a legtimate opinion?)

RE: time marching on w/o thought of the past. I always remember a story that the Library of Congress put material on computer then kept upgrading until they longer had a system to access it.

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Re:Adding extra hardware
Feb 29, 2004 6:57PM PST

Or: Go to Radio Shack and buy a hub, plug it into one of your IDE ports and have 4 spare IDE ports available

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Re:Re:Adding extra hardware
Feb 29, 2004 9:14PM PST

An IDE hub???? Never heard of this. Do you have a radio shack part number handy? I want to check it out.

Probably a better choice, if you want to "hub" things, would be to buy USB enclosures for the IDE devices and then use a USB hub. They cab be cascaded several levels deep and can handle numerous devices, not only IDE drives in USB enclosures, but printers, scanners, Network cards, sound cards, the list goes on and on.

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Re:Re:Re:Adding extra hardware
Mar 1, 2004 2:23PM PST

Ever think of using a promise card , it will give you two eide slots

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Adding extra hardware--IDE Hub
Mar 2, 2004 7:18AM PST

Be careful what you read here. It's obvious not all responses are from "experts" since hubs for external devices are USB, not IDE. Promise sells many types of cars, one being an IDE card. It mounts in a PCI socket and has two ports to which you can connect up to two devices each. Throughput decreases, however, if you connect more than one. And that's especially important for a burning device. It should always be on its own port to prevent data slowdown and subsequent coasters (bad CDs).