How-To: Install a New Hard Drive

Posted by ttblogger on 04/17 at 06:06 PM Discuss in Forums • Permalink
image

The more you use your desktop computer, the more stuff you’re going to be saving to the computers hard drive. Your photos, music, software, and all of your other critical data are stuck on that thing and unless you’re being extra careful, chances are you’re going to fill it to capacity. When this happens, instead of going on a deletion spree, why not just install another drive? If you’re installing a brand new one, this guide will be for you, but if you’re replacing a drive, you should find this helpful as well. In either case, installing a hard drive is very easy and an important skill to have in your arsenal. I’ll explain how to install a new hard drive to a desktop system and prepare it for a fresh operating system installation. If you’re a notebook computer or cheaper netbook user, the same principles will apply, but the connections and the sizes will differ. For the purpose of this guide, I’ll be referencing disk-based hard drives instead of solid-state drives, but the same principles apply for those as well.

Read Full Article Click Here
    Posted by kirt mcmullan  on  04/17  at  03:05 PM

  1. I was always told master on the end and slave in the middle

    2. Posted by Stephen R. Hendrickx  on  04/17  at  05:29 PM

  2. When using an SATA drive and an IDE drive, is a jumper needed on the IDE drive and does it matter which of the connectors I use on the cable? Thank you.

    3. Posted by Tom Arciero  on  04/17  at  06:37 PM

  3. Hi;
    I’m sure it has been mentioned already but,

    Text says master goes on middle connector (IDE)???
    and picture shows slave on middle.

    I believe picture is correct.
    Thanks for all the good tips;
    Tom

    4. Posted by Computer Repair Coventry  on  04/18  at  02:20 AM

  4. A nice to those people who are going to install a new hard drive to their system. But i would suggest one should consult a good computer repair professional for doing so.

    5. Posted by Harry Moore  on  04/18  at  04:44 AM

  5. Since this article was designed with the novice in mind, I think I would have started with instructions to turn off the computer and unplug the power cord.

    Also, with the picture of the IDE cable clearly labeled that the MASTER connection is at the end of the cable and the SLAVE is the middle connection, you stated: “When using a dual head IDE cable and two drives, connect the Master to the middle connection and the Slave to the end.” You can see how that might be confusing as well.

    6. Posted by Jaap  on  04/18  at  05:52 AM

  6. "When using a dual head IDE cable and two drives, connect the Master to the middle connection and the Slave to the end.” - The picture suggests the opposite: slave connects to the grey middle one, master to the black end connector. The blue one indeed typically connects to the motherboard. If i recall correctly the picture gives the correct information, but it’s been quite a while since i installed a IDE-disk.

    7. Posted by Dave Gundlng  on  04/18  at  08:38 AM

  7. Regarding your tech tip on installing hard drives, the picture of the ATA cable shows the master on the end of the cable. The narrative states that the master should be attached to the middle of the cable. Which is correct?

    8. Posted by Fred Moore  on  04/18  at  10:05 AM

  8. This doesn’t agree with the photo:  When using a dual head IDE cable and two drives, connect the Master to the middle connection and the Slave to the end.

    9. Posted by Lee Johnson  on  04/18  at  10:55 AM

  9. You might have mentioned the bios. I changed my drives a couple years ago and the boot order got messed up.  How that happened I am not sure but the master slave arrangement got changed and every time I started the computer I had to go into the bios and change the boot sequence. It wouldn’t remain the way I would save it.  So eventually I opened the case and switched the cables.  No problem after that.

    10. Posted by JOSEPH  on  04/18  at  11:14 AM

  10. The picture of the cable and connection instructions below it seem to conflict. The picture shows the master going at one end of the cable. But your instructions say to connect the master to the middle connector. I could be wrong. Please let me know which connector should be used for the master. Thanks.

    11. Posted by Allen Ridderhoff  on  04/18  at  02:17 PM

  11. In the paragraph under the section of ‘Note for IDE hard drives’, you state “When using a dual head IDE cable and two drives, connect the Master to the middle connection and the Slave to the end.” As per the accompanying photo, and as far as I know this is reverse of what it should be. The Master is on the end and the Slave is in the middle.

    The written information compared to the visual information is very confusing to the reader that is not computer savvy.

    Allen Ridderhoff

    12. Posted by Bruce Epper  on  04/18  at  06:47 PM

  12. I’ll leave the ATA cable position issue alone since almost everybody else has already commented on that one.  There is also another issue: “Creating or deleting partitions as well as formatting a drive will delete all files stored on the drive.”

    This is incorrect.  It only affects the individual parition, not the entire drive and even though a partition may have been deleted, it is still possible for a knowledgeable user to recover said partition and any data that it contained since deleting a partition only removes information from the partition talbe; the data area the partition occupied remains untouched.  Even a format of a partition may not destroy the data it once contained.  I have helped people recover data from accidental deletion or formatting of the wrong drive/partition.

    13. Posted by Andre Griffin  on  04/18  at  07:20 PM

  13. This as very timely for me. I have a Dell XPS with corrupt Hard drive. Need to replace.

    THX

    14. Posted by benicecomp  on  04/18  at  11:01 PM

  14. i have a bad hard drive, maybe i can follow your instruction.. smile

    15. Posted by Marjun  on  05/13  at  02:05 AM

  15. Thank you for posting this articles it helps me a lot in pursuing my study.

    16. Posted by Randy L  on  05/15  at  07:05 AM

  16. This article is incorrectly attached to the Sunday, May 15, 2011 Tech Tip article entitled: “Replacing Your Laptop’s Keyboard - Don’t be Afraid of the Big Bad Repair!”

    17. Posted by Will Turnage  on  05/15  at  09:47 AM

  17. I purchased a new PC with Outlook 2010 installed.  My old has Office Home and Business and my new PC has Outlook 2010 via Office Home and Business.  How can I transfer my contacts and appointments from the old PC to the new PC?

    18. Posted by Darrin Lewis  on  06/11  at  07:40 AM

  18. I tried to install a new hard drive as storage. I selected NTFS but it formated it with a RAW file system I have tried repeatedly to reformat it but my computer refuses. what do i do.

    19. Posted by Randy L  on  06/14  at  01:44 PM

  19. Many of you make a valid point about the conflict of the photo and the instructions as to the position of Master & Slave on the cable. I went to my “Ye Olde Parts Drawer” and pulled out a cable. I have some that have CPU Board, Slave & Master printed on them. The Master does in fact go on the end, and the Slave in the middle. So place the Master in the highest physical position and the slave in a lower drive bay. If for some reason that isn’t possible, just jumper both hard drives on cable select and the computer will decide which will be the C drive.

    20. Posted by Steve Hendrickx  on  07/05  at  07:06 PM

  20. No one has yet to address the question of what to do when one drive is EIDE and the other is SATA with respect to using jumpers on one drive or the other. I still don’t know what to do and can find nothing to really guide me. I have loaded the system on the EIDE drive but the SATA doesn’t show up even when plugged in and I know the drive is good so I need to know, do I add any jumpers on the SATA drive or the EIDE drive?? Thanks ahead for any answer.

    21. Page 1 of 1 pages

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below:


Next entry: Computer Cooling Systems

Previous entry: How To Backup Securely

<< Back to main