Can I plug a 2nd hard-drive in the slot for the CDROM drive?

Question

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?

Solution 1

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

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.

Solution 2

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.

Comments

[Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007]

As-is this is pretty hard to follow. What exactly do you mean by "Slot"? Are you asking how to mount a 3.5" drive in a 5.25" (usually used for optical drives) bay? Or are you asking what port on the motherboard it should be connected to? Or something else? What have you done/tried already? Where exactly are you getting stuck?

[landroni]

By "slot" I probably mean that in my desktop case there is a hard-drive (3.5") and a CDROM drive (5.25", I assume). I was hoping to take out the CDROM drive, and put in instead a 2nd 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. Is it a good idea (I wouldn't want to fry/break anything)?

[Mike Naylor]

sounds like the user wants to disconnect the CD Rom to connect a second drive. Since it's IDE I'm assuming on the same cable in a desktop.

[Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007]

For mounting it physically see: superuser.com/a/662108/23133

[Ramhound]

This entirely depends if the HDD is SATA or PATA and the CDROM Drive is a SATA or PATA drive. They make brackets to overcome the 5.25" to 3.5" problem.

[Mike Naylor]

The first part of the description states the drives are IDE, the second SATA. Please clarify.

[Ramhound]

There are metal brackets that makes a 3.5" device fit into a 5.25" slot.

[landroni]

@JourneymanGeek Do you suggest that as long as the ware is SATA, I can use the exact same connectors for 2.5", 3.5" or 5.25"? Basically, can I indeed physically mount a 2.5" hard-drive in a desktop computer? (That would be awesome!)

[Thalys]

These days? Absolutely, and if its an ssd, it will be 2.5 inch. Unlike PATA, 2.5 inch sata drives use the very same connectors as their bigger siblings.

[henry700]

often, the cdrom is on a different data cable and PATA interface than the HD. Only pick "slave" for the new HD if it is being plugged into the same data cable as the current HD.

[shinjijai]

SATA doesn't have the concept of master and slave, so @landroni should need to worry about that.