posted on August 13, 2001 02:49:57 PM new
And now I'm afraid to touch the thing. Should I really do it by myself?
For starters, I don't want to destory it by touching it. What's the real deal with the "discharge static electricity by touching the metal chassis of your computer" thing? Do I do this before I unpack the hard drive? After? One time or every 5 seconds?
Help me, experts!
[ edited by jamesoblivion on Aug 13, 2001 02:50 PM ]
posted on August 13, 2001 03:21:40 PM new
That's great james! If Borillar isn't around, Mr. Kraft will be home in about an hour and will walk you through it. I'm excited for you
posted on August 13, 2001 03:25:32 PM newWhat's the real deal with the "discharge static electricity by touching the metal chassis of your computer" thing? Do I do this before I unpack the hard drive?
Static electricity is probably the key component in card failures. At work we'd replace cards frequently on turbine controls. Those cards were expensive, VERY expensive. They brought in an expert that taught us the evils of static electricity. The static electricity that is strong enough for you to feel can destroy a computer card instantly, the static electricity you can't feel is what usually does the damage, it can either destroy the card instantly or it can do enough damange to it that the life expectancy of the card drops from years to weeks. We were required to hook a wire to us that plugged into a ground when we handled cards. That's probably overboard for home computer component installation. I'd suggest having the computer plugged in (provided you have a ground plug) and touch a metal base on the computer before you handle the card. If you get up and walk around ground yourself again before handling the card or any components.
posted on August 13, 2001 04:35:49 PM new
It's a breeze, James. Unplug the machine, touch metal with your finger and get to it. The hardest part will be getting the mounting screws to start. Once it's mounted one or sometimes two plugins, plug the machine in and fire it up. You'll need to go to your setup during the boot to let the machine know about the new member. Have the relevant numbers, disc size and sectors, in front of you in case the disc you bought isn't listed in the setup choices. Nowadays most are.
posted on August 13, 2001 05:52:08 PM new
The things are internally grounded. You'd have him charging up it's capacitors ready to pounce upon any new intruder.
What would you recommend for a laptop HD change? Put it in the bathtub?
posted on August 13, 2001 06:16:25 PM new
By placing your finger on the metal or chassis ground you elimnate any potential of difference between you and the machine. With potential equalized there is no risk of static spark from the excess electrons on your skin to the hard drive. They make straps that fit on your wrist and clip to the chassis ground if you a hesitant about using the finger approach.
posted on August 13, 2001 06:24:38 PM new
Congrats, Jim, on your newest acquisition!
While a static wrist strap is only a couple of bucks, all you have to remember is that anytime that you move along the floor, you'll have to come back and touch the metal of your computer casing before touching anything else. Be sure to count to three, because the static charge can take a little while to dissapate.
Now, we'll need some info from you, jim, before we can be of help :
1) Will this hard drive be an addition to one or more existing hard drives in your computer, or will you be using this as your one and only hard drive?
2) Do you intend on installing your operating system on this hard drive?
Don't panic! It's actually quite easy to do this thing so long as you are well preped in advance. Go ahead and relay your info here and I'll check back later to explain what you need to do. (along with everyone else)
posted on August 13, 2001 06:39:22 PM new
Just use common sense with the new drive as far as handling it goes and you'll be fine.
There are a couple of steps to get the new drive properly setup in your computer but I'm not sure where you are with all of this. Have you opened up the PC to see what you are dealing with? Can you answer these questions: is there a empty drive bay to put new drive into/does the existing IDE cable (flat ribbon type) have a spare connector on it(some only have the connector for one drive only)/is the new drive going to be replacing existing drive or added as a second?...Mr Kraftdinner
posted on August 13, 2001 08:27:25 PM new
I hope that it's clear, James, that you should not have the machine plugged in. Capacitors are somewhat like batteries in that they store energy for a purpose. You could fry your new disc by connecting it while the machine is plugged in because that might allow the release to it of some of that stored energy.
Even were that not the case, there is no requirement in National codes that an 110 outlet be grounded. Merely having a third prong is no guarantee that an outlet is hooked to an earth ground. Although the municipal code in your area may stipulate that it be so connected, that does not give assurance that a particular one that you're using was ever connected according to the code or that the connection has been maintained.
The chassis is all the ground the machine requires and doing as kcpick and borillar, and I have said will assure that you don't effect your drive by spurious emmission.
posted on August 13, 2001 09:28:11 PM new
Well, you do want the computer's power cord plugged into the wall socket in order to complete the ground, but just make sure that power is turned off on the computer before you do anything to it. If you unplug the computer from the wall, you'll just be transfering the static energy into the frame and allowing it to circulate and to reappear when you least want it to.
Homes from 1963 or so and forward have a ground wire in the construction of the home. You can go down to Radio Shack and for six bucks purchase an electrical outlet ground wire checker if you aren't sure.
Certainly, touching the exposed circuits on the motherboard or plug-in cards in the slots with your bare finger is asking for trouble, even with power turned off.
posted on August 13, 2001 09:38:29 PM new
Nah. Double insulation is a wondrous thing. In any case the instruction book for a pavillion reads NOTE: Make sure that the computer is turned off and the modem and power cord are disconnected from the computer in that section titled "Adding Drives" beginning on page 187.
posted on August 13, 2001 10:55:44 PM new
Really? I guess they expect you to not use the computer as your method of grounding to get rid of static electricity, but instead use a static mat that is grounded like I used to use (with wrist strap) when I used to build computers for a living. I suppose if one wants to idiot-proof, one ought to unplug the computer from the wall to be sure and to find another way to discharge static electricity.
posted on August 14, 2001 10:09:13 AM new
Drives aren't that sensitive to static when changing or adding one. WATCH the boards when you crack the case though.
Dropping a screw or brushing up against one can static fry it.
Although I have brushed boards and dropped screws on them, I haven't messed one up yet. I did fry a SCSI for a scanner once, but I still don't know how I did it.
Also pay close attention to the sequence of installation. I think you need to install the software first. I installed a 12 gig and did the software afterwards and the size reports as 2 gigs on my "space available" tool. But in explore it accurately reports space available, so no problem, at least so far !! LOL.
[ edited by REAMOND on Aug 14, 2001 10:12 AM ]
posted on August 14, 2001 01:17:53 PM new
Thanks to everyone so far. No, I haven't even taken off the cover yet. I'm determined to basically "get it" all conceptually before I start messing around.
Stupid question; the chassis is the metal side once the cover (hood?) is removed, right?
posted on August 14, 2001 01:56:07 PM new
Believe me, I feel your fear... There are many different styles of cases. On mine, there's a metal frame into which the screws holding the plastic case go. That's where I attached the alligator clip to my wrist strap. The strap was about $6 at Radio Shack, BTW. Gave me confidence to have it...
posted on August 14, 2001 02:12:07 PM new
James, the thing to keep in mind is that your hard drive needs to be set properly according to the jumper settings printed on top of your hard drive. The jumper is a small retangular piece of plastic that sits on top of some pins in the back of the unit. This is how it plays out:
Up to four IDE type devices can be connected to your computer using the connections for the data cables on the motherboard. IDE devices are hard drives, CDROM players, some BACK-UP tape devices, and so forth.
On your motherboard, there are several sockets for these IDE data cables. One is called PRIMARY and the other SECONDARY, sometimes simply labeled as IDE-0 and IDE-1. Therefore, up to two IDE type devices can be attached to either Primary or Secondary IDE connector -- that is, two on each connector on the motherboard.
The conections are made by the IDE data cables. The cables are wide and flat as is shown in the picture someone supplied above. Each data cable typically has three connectors on it - one on each end and usually one off-set from the middle.
Note that in rare cases, an IDE cable has only two connectors, in which case you'll need to go over to your nearest computer parts store and purchase a three connector cable if you are simply adding this new hard drive along with your existing hard drive(s).
At any rate, you can hook up any combination of two IDE devices to one cable. The two devices must be set up so that one is a Master device and the other is a Slave device. This is accomplished by setting the jumpers proply on the back of the devices. In the case where you are only going to have just one device on an IDE cable and that device is a hard drive, then the jumper setting must be set to Stand-Alone. On Western Digital hard drives, that means to remove all jumpers off of the unit. Other brands have different configurations.
Now, if you are merely adding this hard drive to a system that will keep its other hard drive, then here's what you need to know:
1) The hard drive that has your Windows operating system on it MUST be put on the data cable that leads to the PRIMARY or IDE-0 connector and it MUST be set as the MASTER device on that data cable. While other configurations are possible, they require a lot of quarterbacking and what I mentioned above is the simplest way to do this.
2) Your hard drive may not come formated at all. If you purchased an OEM hard drive, typically they are not pre-formatted and do not even have a DOS partition set up yet.
What that means is that if you hook it up right, your BIOS will indeed see the hard drive, but Windows will not.
You need to check this out first before trying to go into Windows. If it is formatted -- you're in business! If it isn't, here are some steps to take:
a) turn off power.
b) unplug your other hard drive on the Primary IDE-cable and set it aside.
c) set the jumpers for your new hard drive as a Stand-Alone device.
d) plug your new hard drive onto the data cable and plug in power to the unit.
e) take your Windows Emergency Boot-up disk and insert it into your floppy disk and turn your system on.
f) boot-up to DOS. You won't need CDROM support at this point. at the A:\ DOS-prompt, type in this command fdisk.
g) At the first screen, select [Y] to enable Large Disk Support.
h) At the next screen, select [1] Create Primary Hard Disk Partition.
i) Next, tell it [Y] that you want to use the whole hard disk and allow it to go check it out.
j) after it checks out the size of your hard disk, it will ask you if you want to set the Primary Hard disk partition and use the whole drive. No matter what, just type [Y] here.
k) it will then come back telling you that the partition is set and that you need to reboot in order to set the partition. Reboot.
l) boot-up to DOS again, still not needing CDROM support. At the A:\ DOS -prompt, type in the command just like this format c: .
m) don't worry when it warns oyu that all data will be erased, because there is no data to erase at this point and just follow the instructions. When the format is done, it will ask you if you want a label name for the drive. Go ahead if you wish to.
All done! Just put your other drive back in, set as Master and this one as Slave. Boot up and go for it!
I hope I've helped you out a bit. Maybe print out this info. In any case, I can be of more exact help to you if you answer my previous questions I posted in this thread.
posted on August 14, 2001 02:18:06 PM new
Opps! One more important thing. The data cable on one side has a red color. Often, to save on color, the manufacturer puts very little color to it. This is the wire that provides orientation. The Red Wire on the data cable must be pointing TO the power connector. Observe the picture supplied by snowyegret above. on the right side of that data cable, the last wire has some red on it, although it is nearly impossible to see in that picture. In that picture, the Red Wire would be on the Right-side, just next to the power cord connection.
posted on August 21, 2001 01:31:36 PM new
Okay, today's the day when I'm gonna put this baby in. One question; I want to put this new hard drive in in addition to my current hard drive (so that I can copy the contents and make the new one the master drive). To do this, do I initially make the new hard drive the slave and once the contents are copied reverse it, making the old drive the slave and the new one the master drive?
posted on August 21, 2001 01:44:12 PM new
I haven't decided yet. If I do, I simply switch the setting after I copy the drive? Will my new drive be named C by default then?
There are many different styles of cases. On mine, there's a metal frame into which the screws holding the plastic case go. That's where I attached the alligator clip to my wrist strap. The strap was about $6 at Radio Shack, BTW. Gave me confidence to have it...