Install an extra HD on a friends Compaq?

[J37X]

my friend is planning on getting an new HD, and i'm most likely going to be helping him install it (He knows about computers but not alot about hardware), Anyway, its a Compaq, not sure of the model, but it has a celeron 600 something, and 64meg ram(its about 2yrs old i think). The new HD will probably be the slave, and the old one the master, (he won't want to reinstall windows to the new drive, even if it is possible, theres no windows cd, just a compaq system recovery disc :rolleyes: ) The question im trying to get to is about Compaq > I heard that they dont have a normal BIOS, like we're all used to,<delete key>, but a bios on a part of the hard drive?.. IF this is true will there be any forseeable problems in setting up this new drive? How the heck would you auto detect the new drive, right?

[Yodums]

I dont know how the Compaq bios work but just make sure the drive he has right now that when before putting the drive in make sure the jumper is set to master and the HDD is on the last ATA Connecter on the cable since thats the master then the slave HDD should be selected as slave, then plugged in the middle connecter.

That should do it and it will auto detect and you'll have to partition it.

Yodums

[J37X]

Cool, I was hoping it would be that simple, :) . thanks Yodums, I'll slap it in there with the master/slave setup up correctly, Fdisk, Format, and he can fill it up with mp3's and videos :D

[Yodums]

Have fun with it.

Yodums

[XprincoX]

i used to have a compaq, and installing a new hd was actually pretty simple. As yodum said, just make sure the jumpers and cables and everything are setup correctly. The bios is veeery basic, but should detect the drive upon boot. :burn: