help, i need computer help

[paintball snipy]

well, i was messing with my old (as dirt) computer and remembered i need a little more disk space. so i took out the hd (its formatted) and was about to try to put it into my other computer but i wanted to know if i would have to install anything to get it to work, or if it would just reconize it as an extra drive.

any help would be apriciated.

the computer is just a crappy emachine, the kind you buy at best buy. about a year old. exact model is T1742 and the only extra thing i dropped in was some ram (256 i think).

*from emachines site*
Specifications of eMachines T1742

Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Intel® Celeron® Processor 1.70 GHz (w/128KB L2 cache & 400MHz FSB)
Intel 845GL Chipset
7.25"w x 14.125"h x 16"d
40 GB HDD
AOL 3 month membership included, click here for details
128 MB DDR (PC2100)
56K* ITU v.92 ready Fax/Modem
10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
48x Max. CD-ROM Drive; 3.5" 1.44MB FDD
Keyboard, Wheel Mouse, Stereo Speakers
AC '97 Audio
Intel Extreme Graphics 3D (845GL shared)
6 USB 2.0 ports (2 on front), 1 Serial, 1 Parallel, 2 PS/2, Mic-In & Head Phone jack on front, Audio-In & Out, 3 PCI slots (2 available)

[OfficerGoat]

I presume that you are trying to put the extra drive in as a secondary so you can have some more space? If so it will work, however there are a couple of things I recomend you do prior to swaping it out. 1st.. format it. Boot the computer it currently resides in into dos mode and type "formatt c:" It will prompt you if you really wanna do this yada yada... Remember when you do this you will loose everything on here including windows... but I am presuming its already loaded into the machine that its going into so no big deal.

The second thing you MUST do .. you will need to change the jumper over to the "Slave" setting. This way your computer knows to boot off of the drive that is alrady installed. If you don't make this change and you install your drive on the same cable as the other your computer wont boot at all.... that would suck.

Personaly I would recomend having someone around that has a bit of experience in this stuff first.. but hey...up to you.

Good luck.

[paintball snipy]

ya, i already formatted. and yes the other one has xp and all that crap.

but do you know what the slave position is? right now it is vertical on the far left pins. sombody told me to put it horrizantel on the bottome left pins. is this right?

[PyRo]

I think the slave position depends on the hard drive. I'm pretty sure mine tells you on the back of the hard drive.

[pbzmag]

Your HD should have the jumper setting. It should be a simple graphic showing the different configurations.

[paintball snipy]

nope, doesn't tell me, but i figured it out.