Adding 2nd Hard Drive with 320w PSU

[MaghdalenaLogan]

I don't know if anyone can help; me or not.  I hope I'm not violating the Terms of service, But here goes:
I have a 2 TB hard drive (I think it's a Western Digital, and I'd like to add another hard drive, either traditional HDD or SSD, whichever takes the least energy to run and have Linux Mint installed on that. I have Windows 7 64 bit installed, but I *do not* want to wipe Windows at all. I just want to dual boot, but with separate disks. The problem is, I don't know if the 320w PSU will allow me to do that. I've heard that hard drives don't take all that much room but is that actually feasible?  Will the power supply support another hard drive(I'd consider an SSD, and in fact, I'd like one) either hard drive or SSD so that I could install Linux on the new one, and keep Windows on the main hard drive, or would I be better off dual booting off the same disk. I've heard a lot of scare stories and a lot of stories where it went fine.  I also know I can’t upgrade to a stronger power supply with this computer.

I don't have UEFI, at least it doesn't show EFI or UEFI in the Disk Management utility in Windows, so I assume that means it’s legacy bios. Is it even possible to dual boot with 2 drives with what I have, a DVD-R optical drive, 2 TB HDD, 8 GB RAM and Intel Core 2 Duo at 3 Ghz.
If I’d be better off dual booting on the same disk I do have an 878 GB partition that doesn’t have anything on it. But is it safe? It seems to be split between it’s OK, and absolutely, do not do it. You can “brick yourself out” of both OS if something goes wrong, and frankly, this has me running scared, so if I can, I’d prefer to have the Windows and Linux on separate disks.

My computer specs are as follows:
Computer: HP Compaq 6000 Pro Microtower
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz
Memory: 8 GB DDR3
Video: Integrated Video
Audio: Integrated Audio
Storage:
1. WDC WD2002FYPS-01U1B1 ATA Device-2 TB-Western Digital (SATA 2 I think)
2. Seagate External (USB) Hard Drive (My Windows files are all redirected to our external drive)]]
Optical Drive: hp DVD-RAM GH60L ATA Device (it’s SATA as far as I know)
Operating System; Windows 7 Professional.
I haven’t gotten a Hard Drive yet. I was planning to get one during this coming holiday season, but wanted to wait to see if it would actually be feasible first, and also that’s when our Christmas bonus usually comes in, then have it installed. I’m just starting to learn about computer hardware and eventually building a computer, but I’m by no means there yet, so I’m planning to have someone install it for us and install Linux Mint on that drive. I think they call it an OEM install.
I’d appreciate any help I could get or advice, if if I can use another hard drive, should it be traditional or SSD?
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely yours,
Katherine Logan

[Grizzlys2k · Accepted solution]

Hello!

You can install any hard drive you want as 2nd drive with no problem...If you will try a SSD that will even makes things run really fast...Your 320W PSU is more than enough to support it...make sure you have the SATA Power cable from the PSU...and just go ahead and install any drive you want...SSD's are way more faster and they consume less power too.. 

Weather you have UEFI or not you can see it in your BIOS and not in Windows management...but that is not an important feature for dual boot...that means you can dual boot on multiple drives no matter if you are using UEFI or not...Now...you want to use Linux Mint...I have no ideea if that version of LINUX requires you to use UEFI or not...so that's the only thing you must check..

Other than that...go for it..you will have no problems!

[MaghdalenaLogan]

Thanks so much for the prompt reply. It's good to know that it will fit in the PSU's "budget", lol. I've heard a lot of good things about the speed of SSDs, so thanks for that. And the note about the SATA cables to the PSU is a good note. I did not know that, but the people who checked my computer, when I set this baby up, I got the 5 beep code. Turned out when I had it checked by someone who knew what they were doing it was the RAM wasn't properly seated in its slot, It's worked fine since then. 

As far as UEFI, when I tried out Mint in live media and altered the boot order to have the HDD second, I didn't see anything about UEFI or Secure boot for that matter. I could check again, but there was no mention of it. 

I think Mint allows for UEFI but can be installed under either legacy or UEFI(though if I had had secure boot, I'd have to disable it or the boot loader, grub 2 won't show up or be seen, from what I understand. 

Again, thanks so much for setting me at ease. 

Katherine M. Logan