Installing a HD

I have done some hardware stuff on my old computers, but never anything on my new one.

I plan on installing a 4.3GB HD in my computer, and get it to act as a slave, so I can have Linux installed on it, and have a dual boot system

I have a few questions..

The 4.3GB HD will require formatting, should I do it while its in the other computer, or format during installation?

How difficult is the installation?, I know it requires the movement of jumpers.

Will I have to change anything in BIOS?

Is there anyway I can mess up my system, by installing this HD?

Any other recommendations/suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks

Hello!
>>The 4.3GB HD will require formatting, should I do it while its in the other computer, or format during installation?
doesn't really matter... I think i would have formatted it during installation though

>>How difficult is the installation?, I know it requires the movement of jumpers.
It's very easy, just put the right cables at the right places :) , and there is almost always a description on how to set the jumpers on the HDD.

>>Will I have to change anything in BIOS?
you will probably have to set the primary/secondary IDE type

>>Is there anyway I can mess up my system, by installing this HD?
There's always a possibility, pretty hard though

>>Any other recommendations/suggestions are appreciated.
ground(?) yourself either by touching the chassi or using one of those anti static bracelets

To add onto Fredd's comments, as far as the anti static thing goes, if you're on a hard wood floor and haven't been touching your monitor's screen(I never do that, and get ........ed at people who point at my new 17" GR), then you should more than likely be fine. I never usually worry about it regardless. If you want to be cautions though, make sure to touch the OUTSIDE METAL CASING WHERE THERE ARE NO WIRES OF ANY KIND on your power supply. This, if you have a static electricity charge built up in your hard, will discharge into the metal casing. You'll get a static shock like touching somebody else, etc. That will discharge anything that would otherwise discharge into your board.

I agree with Fredd in that it's very easy stuff..I just built a fairly nice setup, and have been too lazy to finis monkeying with my hard drives and BIOS stuff for my DOS box, but I would recommend that after you get the drives formatted and the system running, practice this stuff.

Switch the jumpers aroud, reboot your computer, mess with ONLY the BIOS settings for the primary/secondary IDE auto-detection stuff(not changing any values, or using software) just so you can come to grips with how it all works and what will happen if you say hook something up wrong.

Pretty much, it won't detect the drive, and your pc will try to boot an OS from another location.

Excuse my spelling errors.

If you are worried about static, grab hold of one of your radiators. That'll take any charge straight to ground. It's what I do, and it kind of gives me a nice feeling being safe in the knowledge that I'm at ground voltage.

Don't worry about formatting. You'll do that when you install linux on the drive. MS formatting isn't compatable with linux.

As for setting drive jumpers, the best thing to do is check out the hd manufacturer's web site. Most have very good install guides to download for free.

Static, as mentioned, touch the metal case to discharge yourself and you should be ok.

The only difficult part is the bios. Depending on how old the bios is you can run into problems, but if the bios is new enough it's nearly automatic. The only easy way to tell is just to try. If you are familiar with enterring the bios setup without changing anything I would suggest writing down on paper the current drive setup. (cylinders, heads, sectors, etc.) That can save a lot of headaches if something goes wrong.

Well I installed the HD and put Linux on it. When I went into windows after I put the hadr drive in, it detected it, and I was able to browse it. So I rebooted, and installed Linux.

Thanks for the help.

umm if u partitioned it correclty during formatting windows shouldnt of detected it. or am i wrong (your planning to use this for linux right?)