Can I add a second SATA hard drive without flashing my BIOS? I am using Windows XP

R

Rick G

New member
on DELL E310? I have a new SATA hard drive I would like to add to my Dell Dimension E310 Windows XP computer. There is currently the original SATA hard drive installed. Although I have hooked up the second hard drive the computer has not recognized it, so I was wondering if it is necessary to Flash the BIOS. I've read this can be dangerous to do so I am hoping there is an easier way to get the computer to recognize the second hard drive. Because this is an SATA hard drive there are no JUMPERS to set. Also note that SATA hard drives cannot be Masters and Slaves. SATA hard drives are connected directly into the motherboard. Thank you!
 
You could be dealing with a SATA II hard drive on a SATA controller, which isn't necessarily possible depending on the drive. Some SATA II drives have jumpers where you can limit them to 150MB/s (for SATA compatibility), but it's far from common. I've seen it on a few Western Digital drives and several Seagates marked as SATA 150 (jumpered by default), but I don't know who else might offer it or even if anyone is still doing it. It's been a couple of years.

If the new drive is marked as SATA II or says anything like 3Gbps or 300MB/s and the old drive is marked as just SATA, 150MB/s, or SATA 1.5Gbps then you can't get the new drive to work in that system. It's a limitation of the chipset on the motherboard not BIOS. You can't update the chipset.
 
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