How can I install multiple hard drives on a single motherboard ?

[Harigopal]

I have got a desktop system , I do not know anything about the computer except to play games and access internet. when I click on my computer I see 2 local drives in it which specifies 160GB of space in each. One day I went to my friends house, I saw that there were 9 volumes of hard drives visible to me. When I asked about it he could not give any explanation to me as he was too poor as far as these machinery knowledge were concerned. I checked the capacity it showed something else for six and very less for the rest. I think he has installed more than one hard drive in his system . Can I do that too. Please help me I too want to increase the capacity.

[Amd Athlon]

Yes you can definitely do that, you can allow a number of hard drives but your motherboard must be compliant to do so. you have not mentioned a single component of your hard drive. How can I tell you unless you mention your system configuration, because you were too excited when you saw a big number of hard drive volumes. I would request you to tell me your system's configuration , specially the type of motherboard and the type and numbers of connectors in it where a hard drive can be installed. Do not forget to mention the type whether it is SATA or PATA/IDE. Come up with necessary information then I will definitely tell you whether you ca have multiple number of hard drives or not. If you think you cannot open the system CPU and determine anything of your own, please call any of your friend to do it for you.

[Harigopal]

Yes I am really sorry for that , I think if I had mentioned this before , I think I could have seen a big volume of hard drive as well. I did not know anything about my system so I called my neighbor you has a bit of knowledge in computer system, he says I have an Intel Chipset motherboard, dual core processor, 320 GB of hard drive and he says my internal hard drive is connected to a SATA connector on the motherboard and it has 2 such connectors and of which is one of is spare and the other one is occupied.

[Amd Athlon]

As your friend suggested that you have one of your SATA connector is spare , you can connect one more SATA hardd rive to that connector in the motherboard, if you have an old extra hard drive with you and you wish to connect it on the system board then should have SATA ports as well. But let me tell you that you assuming you will connecting any type of hard drive in your motherboard without checking the ports and the cables , then sorry my friend it is not possible You cannot mount a PATA hard drive in on a SATA connector, if you have an PATA pot then you can install on it . After installing one hard drive will be master and the other will be slave.

[Abhibhava]

Multiple Hard Disk Connection: There are many patterns that occur while connecting multiple hard disks. Those patterns are:

• Multiple SATA Connection or a SATA and a PATA hard disk: multiple Sata Hard Disk Can be connected easily just set the hard disk priority in the bios setting. But for dual PATA hard disks there is master slave configuration to be set on each of the hard disks.
• The setting is done using a jumper. There are four slots in which jumper can be connected. The hard disk from which OS to be booted is to be made master and the jumper short pin no. 7 and 8 or slot no. 1 and for all other hard disk that is to be made Slave Hard disk jumper should not be put.