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I've received a second 3.5" hard-drive and I'd like to plug it in my desktop computer. The desktop case has only one slot for a hard-drive (3.5") and another slot for a CDROM drive (5.25", I assume). I am no expert in this, but as far as I understand both devices are SATA and share the same connectors.

I would like to take out the SATA CDROM drive (5.25") and connect instead a SATA hard-drive. Superficially the connectors look similar, but I haven't yet tried to plug the connectors used for the CDROM drive into the 2nd hard-drive.

Question:

  • Can I plug the 2nd hard-drive into the slot of the CDROM drive? Is it a good idea (I wouldn't want to fry/break anything)?
  • And does Linux risk getting confused about that?
landroni
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2 Answers2

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You can, just be careful to look at the jumpers on the back of the drives. Make sure your current hard drive is set to be the 'master' and the new drive is set to 'slave'. This will ensure your system will boot properly.

I wouldn't recommend using 'cable select' as most of the time the end connector is considered the 'master' which would be where your CD-ROM was most likely.

Here's a fairly good explanation of the jumper settings

EDIT:

With SATA drives a second hard drive can be added in the place of a CD-ROM. As most modern SATA drives do not have jumpers, check your BIOS settings to ensure that your current hard drive is the primary boot option. I would recommend booting into the BIOS with just the current drive connected to get the device display name so you know which drive it is. Some BIOS versions group hard drives and you will need to set the current drive as primary in the group. If you do not set the current drive as the primary you may have to manually select it each time you boot.

Mike Naylor
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This is simple. Buy 3.5" to 5.25" adapter brackets like this

this

Or, if you do not have a bay blank, buy a 3.5" HDD bay that fits in a 5.25" slot like this

this

Ebay is a great place to look for little things like these.

Then connect the HDD with the same cables that plugged into the CD-ROM.

In linux, you probably will want to modify your FSTAB configuration to eliminate the OS looking for the CD-ROM on boot, but even if you did not do this, it should not create any problems. Add your mount point for your new HDD while you are in there.

Damon
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