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General discussion

Dell Dimension 8200 hdd upgrade question and OS question.

by Nomadx68 Feb 14, 2009 10:53AM PST

I haven't had my old Dell up and running in about a year now (bought a new PC) and what I want to do is turn it into a home server.

I'd like to upgrade the hdd from a 40gb to 2 giant drives for the server but I need some information on how to do that.

I also want to install Windows Home Server operating system (I see no reason to buy a hp server when I have my old Dell)

Can someone please tell me how to do these things or point me in the right direction? I'd really appreciate it and so would my wife...she will be happy I don't need to buy anything but the hdd's and OS lol.

Thanks in advance.

PS, if anything I'd like to know how to remove the 40 gig and install the 2 new drives, after that I can install the server OS I guess.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim8200/specs.htm#1101572

Discussion is locked

7 Posts
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Re: discs
by Kees Bakker Feb 14, 2009 8:07PM PST

Removing a drive is easy. Open the case, disconnect the cables, loosen a few screws and there you are. Inserting is the other way around.

The specs say:

Internally accessible: two bays for 1-inch?high IDE hard drives
Available devices: ATA-66 or ATA-100 Ultra DMA hard drive, CD drive, Zip drive, DVD drive, and CD-RW drive

So you'll need to buy two 1-inch high ATA-100 Ultra DMA drives. Take the old with you if you visit the shop and they'll select something that fits.

Read all you need to know about 40- or 80-wired cables, master, slaves and cable select. Or ask in the shop for advice.

Kees

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thanks
by Nomadx68 Feb 15, 2009 3:33AM PST

Thanks for the info but I think I'm more confused now. I thought all I needed was some IDE drives for it. Maybe I do but you have named them all off I didn't know about. I'll read more into it later thanks for the help.

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If the info Kees gave you
by lacsr Feb 15, 2009 8:43PM PST

confused you, then maybe you should not be doing the deed until you get familiar with what needs to be done. He indeed told you how.

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um ok
by Nomadx68 Feb 16, 2009 3:25AM PST

I'm not so stupid that if I can't do it I won't. I didn't need a reply like this lol. I was requesting help not pointless remarks.

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by the way
by Nomadx68 Feb 16, 2009 3:27AM PST

Kees you did help me quite a bit I did some more reading on some things you posted so you helped me thank you.

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dell manual
by chickenorfish Feb 16, 2009 3:50AM PST

the dell manual should have a section in it how to remove the hard drive. if its ide you need to set the jumpers, but if its sata you dont need to. either way, you need to enter the bios to enable the 2nd ide/sata cable. its really easy to do, dell dumbs down the bios so you cant screw it up

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thanks
by Nomadx68 Feb 16, 2009 3:57AM PST

I'll check the manual for that thank you. No idea how to set jumpers hopefully that's in there too.

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