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 Almost Everything You Need to Know About Your Packard Bell Computer
EIDE Hard Drive Upgrade
Part 2

I have just completed my hard drive upgrade.  I installed a 3.5 Gig Maxtor hard drive as my primary drive.  I will use this drive with my old 1.2 Gig Maxtor drive that came with the system.  I have filled this 1.2 Gig drive up many times, by deleting all the old files I do not need so it was time to get a new drive since there was nothing unimportant left to delete.

This page is for those that want to know more about installing EIDE hard drives on their systems.


How do you install a new hard drive?
1) Read  
2) Plan 
3) Back up old data 
Part 1
4) Install  
5) Set up 
6) Format 
Part 2
Read my "Formating OSR2 with Fat 32" Page
 

Installation -  
PB Drive Rails


You have to use these to install a 3.5 size device in a 5.25 bay on most Packard Bell Computers. 

Most of you should have got these with your system, I remember seeing them and had no idea as to what they were.

Maxtor Drive Rails


These are useless on a Packard bell computer.  You should have seen me trying to get the hard drive in the computer with these. 

Save these, they probably work in standard cases, and if you ever get a new case you might 

The part number for either the left or right PB rail is: 146701, Packard Bell sells them for $5 each.  PB sells them through their customer service # (801) 579-0160.  You will need these.
 

Set Up

Format -

I will tell you it was quite an experience putting in a new hard drive, since I knew nothing when I started.  I tried to put the major points on these two pages, I hope I have given you enough.  If not try any hard drive manufactures sites, they should be full of this information.

An interesting note, until I got my Internet connection working I keeped both drives as Master.  This means I could not have both drives plugged in at the same time.  I would simply swap which drive was plugged in to the computer, reboot and change the BIOS setting.  When I wanted to work on the other drive I would simply do the same thing over again.  This was a pain but it took me three evenings to get my system back to 100% (Now I just have to reinstall all the games).  I should have done it on a day that I did not have to work.

Good luck in your upgrades - I hope these pages shed a little light on the subject.


Go Back to Part 1 of EIDE Hard Drive Installations

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