New Presario tower, no spare drive bays

I was setting up a Compaq Presario SR1012 for someone whose old Compaq
5301RSH (both from Radio Shack) had died, and I thought I would put the
hard drive from their old PC in the new tower. But the tower has no spare
drive bay or anywhere else to mount another hard drive, and the cable
is just a "Master" cable select (single connector).

It has:
(2) 5.25" full height bays (DVD & CD-RW)
(3) 3.5" bays (multi-memory card slots, floppy, and audio/usb connectors)
(1) 5.25 half height hard drive bay

At least it has an extra hard drive power plug, and I used the 2 drive
cable select cable from the old PC to temporarily connect the old drive
with case open to transfer files. If they do not want to go to the
expense of an extra drive bay, they could at least put some holes in the
bottom of the case where an extra hard drive could be mounted (with the
threaded connections on drive bottom), even if it required a customer
supplied drive cable.

My now related HP a530n looks like the same deal (except DVD+RW & CD) with
only Master cable and place to mount 1 hard drive. But it has a tab with
threaded holes and chassis slots where it looks like something could be
added to hold another drive.

Most PCs have 2 IDE channels, so especially a tower (with loads of empty
space), should have some place to mount 4 IDE drives, even if one is a
simple chassis mount instead of a drive bay. Punching some extra holes in
the chassis (like my old NEC Pentium 100, which ran 3 hard drives and CD)
would cost next to nothing.

--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored http://www.de-srv.com/

David,

There is not a lot of rhyme or reason any more to personal computer chassis
design. I have a very nice Compaq D510 Evo SFF chassis here. Nice if you have
cramped space on the desktop, and equally nice if you have no plans to expand
what is inside. The system has a hard drive and a CD-ROM drive. It also has
two IDE connectors on the motherboard, and very obviously no place to put two
more IDE drives. Go figure.

Presarios have long had very quirky physical layout, a good reason to avoid
them. Except they show up in mass-market channels with tantalyzing price tags,
so people go and buy them.

One of my clients had a Presario that misbehaved, and I diagnosed a failed
motherboard, due to an electrical power surge. I had a replacement fairly
generic Intel ATX board that would fit just fine, but no way to rewire the leads
to the front panel. My solution was simply to drop the guts of the Presario
into a standard ATX chassis along with the new and faster motherboard. A little
readjustment of Windows drivers and the system operated normally. I have a
happy client.

I've gotten to the point where I don't want to mess with repairs of Presarios
any longer. Too much of a pain in the ass... Ben Myers

On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 17:11:03 +0000 (UTC), (David Efflandt)
wrote:

I was setting up a Compaq Presario SR1012 for someone whose old Compaq
5301RSH (both from Radio Shack) had died, and I thought I would put the
hard drive from their old PC in the new tower. But the tower has no spare
drive bay or anywhere else to mount another hard drive, and the cable
is just a "Master" cable select (single connector).

It has:
(2) 5.25" full height bays (DVD & CD-RW)
(3) 3.5" bays (multi-memory card slots, floppy, and audio/usb connectors)
(1) 5.25 half height hard drive bay

At least it has an extra hard drive power plug, and I used the 2 drive
cable select cable from the old PC to temporarily connect the old drive
with case open to transfer files. If they do not want to go to the
expense of an extra drive bay, they could at least put some holes in the
bottom of the case where an extra hard drive could be mounted (with the
threaded connections on drive bottom), even if it required a customer
supplied drive cable.

My now related HP a530n looks like the same deal (except DVD+RW & CD) with
only Master cable and place to mount 1 hard drive. But it has a tab with
threaded holes and chassis slots where it looks like something could be
added to hold another drive.

Most PCs have 2 IDE channels, so especially a tower (with loads of empty
space), should have some place to mount 4 IDE drives, even if one is a
simple chassis mount instead of a drive bay. Punching some extra holes in
the chassis (like my old NEC Pentium 100, which ran 3 hard drives and CD)
would cost next to nothing.

--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored http://www.de-srv.com/

My solution to a similar situations has been to scavenge a drive cage
from an old dead system and then mount it in the second machines chassis. A
simple, an not to elegant, case hack. Be sure to take note of the air flow
as cooling in tightly packed chassis can be an issue. When in doubt add a
second/auxiliary case fan if possible.

As a secondary alternative, I have also used mounting rails (the same
ones you'd use to mount a 31/2 inch drive in a 51/4 inch bay) to piggy back
one drive behind/a top another. Again heat can be an issue, so do what you
can to minimize it.

KC

"David Efflandt" wrote in message
...
I was setting up a Compaq Presario SR1012 for someone whose old Compaq
5301RSH (both from Radio Shack) had died, and I thought I would put the
hard drive from their old PC in the new tower. But the tower has no spare
drive bay or anywhere else to mount another hard drive, and the cable
is just a "Master" cable select (single connector).

It has:
(2) 5.25" full height bays (DVD & CD-RW)
(3) 3.5" bays (multi-memory card slots, floppy, and audio/usb connectors)
(1) 5.25 half height hard drive bay

At least it has an extra hard drive power plug, and I used the 2 drive
cable select cable from the old PC to temporarily connect the old drive
with case open to transfer files. If they do not want to go to the
expense of an extra drive bay, they could at least put some holes in the
bottom of the case where an extra hard drive could be mounted (with the
threaded connections on drive bottom), even if it required a customer
supplied drive cable.

My now related HP a530n looks like the same deal (except DVD+RW & CD) with
only Master cable and place to mount 1 hard drive. But it has a tab with
threaded holes and chassis slots where it looks like something could be
added to hold another drive.

Most PCs have 2 IDE channels, so especially a tower (with loads of empty
space), should have some place to mount 4 IDE drives, even if one is a
simple chassis mount instead of a drive bay. Punching some extra holes in
the chassis (like my old NEC Pentium 100, which ran 3 hard drives and CD)
would cost next to nothing.

--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored http://www.de-srv.com/