I have an old tower system that we used for games mainly, but now I don't have the husband, it sits gathering dust (the pc, not the husband). Can I put the hard drive into my other tower to make it work faster and have more space?? I tried putting a bigger memory card in it but it only seemed to make it slower if anything.

I know it's about 5 or 6 yrs old but it seems like it's being powered by a hamster called Gerald!!

Failing that, would it be better to just treat it like an old car and break it for spares??

Any advice gratefully received

Only a good CPU (AMD 5000+ dual core) and a good motherboard would make the computer go faster!

No harm though adding a second hard drive and new motherboards (mobo) tend to take the newer DDR SDRAM's.

I assume I won't lose anything off my hard drive if I add another one? Do they just "merge" or will it be partitioned?

I'm a bit dim when it comes to certain things to do with computers

It will appear as a second drive - but if you put it on the same cable as your current one you need to change the links on the drive to be a "slave" - right up your street!

no you wont lose any data, set one as master and the other as slave 1st though

I have "subs" not slaves



How easy is it to do??

just as easy as flicking the light switch on

Loook on the back and there will be pins, there will be a little plastic jumper which you use as your `switch` on the top of the drive it should say `cs slave or master` set it to slave on one and the other should be on master anyway

but the one with windows needs to be master

Can I "kill" anything if I make a mistake



Neither have windows - not even a skylight, and I don't need another Master

nahhh, you can`t make a mistake
its easy

wot speed is your tower currently?

You could buy a hdd case and use the other hdd as an external USB drive.

Saves all the messing of jumpers and IDE cables etc.

One of these will do.

http://www.usbnow.co.uk/External_HDD_&_Cases-3.5%22_Hard_Drive_Cases/c10_25/index.html

Just about to say about a HDD USB External case use it as a back up drive of some sort.. If you actually wanting to play the games that are on the HD in some cases it is possible but isnt in some othercases cause the game has to install on your main PC so it adds aload of stuff to the Registry and what nots.. But apart from that you can use it if you install it to your system making sure you set it to a slave drive swapping a little connection at the back of the hd but the best option is use a USB HDD Case it wont speed up your personal computer jaci it'l just give you more space to store stuff.. If you wanted to speed it up you either change the Processor of you system or upgrade your memory.. OR just my a faster computer lol if you where that desperate for more speed.

Depends what mood Gerald the Hamster is in. It's very very slow but I think it's because of the amount of music and course work on it.


I shall look into that - cheers Ooooooooooooooooh I like the blue light one




The games have been wiped off it. I had to reformat it last year. I'd forgotten to reinstall Windows XP and have tried it but it gets so far and won't go any further - I'd guess it's safe to say it may well be fubard I upgraded the memory on my main tower last year but it made bupkiss of an impact. Buying another one is not an option at the moment so it leaves me very few options.

Maybe breaking for parts is the best option

Actually you could improve the speed of your computer in several ways.
1) click on start button control panel
click on system then look for the hardware tab click on it then you will see device Manager click on that in device manager click on disk drives to select then right click and go to properties, click on the policy tab tick the enable write caching on the disk.
More tips and tweaks on the net
http://www.build-your-own-computers.com/optimize-windows-xp-disk-performance.html


http://www.pctipsbox.com/speed-up-windows-by-optimizing-your-page-file/

other tips include defrag the drive too.
More here on DMA
http://www.pcauthorities.com/pc-speed/activate-dma-mode-for-ide-controller

The above depending on what memory or processor speed you have will make your computer slower cause your caching actually on disk also if you have a KEY meter which switches off the supply this really messes up stuff its good in one sense and not so good in another.. So be very careful give it ago see how things go but to be 100% i dont find much difference in speed weather thats switched on or off.. So its up to you!

hi, I havent had one hard disk mess up due to changing any of those settings, there are more advanced steps that could be taken such as registry hacks but for the scope of things here I have kept it simple and cost free. I work for a large computer company on brunswick !! (s) disk drives are so cheap now anyway but its where you get off, I mean once you start spending on an old machine is it really worth it? You could always ask around for returned stock sold cheaper. Epox uk used to be very good but they have gone! you could get motherboards for a tenner. and use your old parts on a semi new board. Swapping to NTF can also improve performance too but again I didnt want to go too deep.

yer i now niether have i but we gotta put those precautions in cause we are talking about caching once things are cached and something trips it does mess things around but to be 100% ive never really noticed any difference with or with out the caching on maybe i need to get out more

*lol* depends upon drive size too, *g*! puts my sad hat on