How to remove Secondary HD ?

Silverfox

I would like to remove the secondary HD WD 120GB from a PC. The primary C drive is also a 120GB WD and is all that is needed.

Can I simply shut the power down and unplug the atx power connector and the ribbon cable from the Secondary F: drive and then just re-boot the PC ?

Regards

RoyBatty

Yes that's all you have to do. Just don't forget to turn off the PSU before unplugging the drive, to be safe.

Lowfat

Since the primary drive is C you should be able to as hopefully the master boot record is saved on that drive.

Dyre Straits

There are some HDD configurations that may require a change of the jumper. Some HDDs require a certain jumper location if a Slave Drive is connected. If that Slave Drive is removed, the jumper may need to be changed on the Primary Drive in order to establish it as a Single Drive.

So, I'd advise checking the Website for those HDDs and look up the Jumper Configuration.

It may very well be as easy as just disconnecting the Secondary, but, you want to eliminate surprises.

Silverfox

Thanks for the replys. I originally saw that the primary was pinned for master and the secondary pinned for the slave as it should have been. I just did the above and repinned the primary as CS [cable select] rebooted and everything is fine now just running the single 120GB WD HD.

The pc is having startup & shutdown issues freezing and hanging so I am troubleshooting trying to take some load off the rig in case its the Antec 480 watt p.s.

I even removed the AIW X800xt card and stuck in a nominal load old nvidia mx440 but the problems still persist and now I am having to startup hitting the F8 key and selecting the VGA mode and even this way it still freezes at different stages of the windows loading process. The shutdown always hangs or freezes right after the savings your settings dialog.
Once i get the pc to load up everything works fine with no freezes or artifacts. Like I said it is only during shutdown & startup do I get the freezing.
I installed the utility UPHclean and reviewed the eventviewer/ application and all is o.k. I assume since the utility didnt have to unload any dll`s or registry hangups during the shutdown process.

The pc has NO viruses or malware as I have run AVG & Adaware with system restore turned off in safe mode & normal and even sent a Hijackthis Log file into the forum for review and they say everything looks fine as far as no malware or hijack problems.

The cpu, video card, etc. is not running hot, no dust in the pc, no low voltages shown using the Speedfan utility.

The bios is the same as it was 2 yrs. ago and the pc clock time is not lagging so I didnt replace the cmos battery or reset the cmos.

I have also thru msconfig checked only the essential processes to start and the same in services. I have only 29 processes running.

I am going to try and run the sfc/ scannow but I only have the original XP SP1 CD and this rig has already been updated to SP2, so the original XP SP1 CD probably will not work.

I would appreciate any tips if anyone has seen this scenario before?

Regards, Silverfox