Hard+Drive+install+another

Hard Drive install another

Before considering installing a second hard drive you must first, determine whether the computer system has room for an additional hard drive.

Open the computer case and locate the hard drive.

It will be at the front of the case.

Do not touch anything with one hand

Always have one hand on the case as you touch the inside.

Why ? , because you are earthing yourself, and then no static electricity will ruin any of your components.

The drive will probably be about an inch high, three and a half inches wide, and about five or six inches long, with two connectors plugged into it.

If there is room above or below that hard drive for another device the same size, you probably have room for a second hard drive.

There should be a structure similar to a rack made of metal.

A drive looks similar to this When it is opened, but I suggest that you leave It closed in it’s case.

You then have to decide whether to install a IDE or SATA

Why? , Because you cannot mix drives they must be the same structure to operate

One way to tell is to look at the cables attached to the existing drive.

One will be a power connector and the other will be a data connector.

The power connector routes to the computerʹs power supply and the data connector routes to the motherboard.

If the data connector is wide, (about two inches), this is an IDE drive, and you will need to get a second IDE drive.

Also, check to see if there is available space to plug in a second drive on the same ribbon cable.

If not, you will need to install a second ribbon cable in the second drive controller slot on the motherboard, assuming itʹs available. Or buy a cable with a double/treble connection

(The cable should come with the drive.)

The above is the Ribbon Cable for IDE the above is the IDE Power connector These are the slots in the motherboard If the data connector is small (less than an inch wide), you have a newer SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) drive, and will need to purchase another SATA drive.

You should have plenty of space available on the motherboard to add another SATA drive, as most motherboards that support SATA have at least four SATA connectors. The above is the SATA Cable, and the above is the motherboard slots for SATA

You may find that your motherboard will accept a combination of IDE and SATA drives.

However, SATA provides superior performance, so use it whenever possible.

Now you have established which kind of drive is installed we can look at which specs to buy.

They come in different sizes i.e. Megabytes or Gigabytes

The storage capacity of the Hard drives of yesteryear were measured in megabytes, and one megabyte (MB) is about one million characters.

Today, hard drives are much smaller and much cheaper.

You can buy various sizes, remember one gigabyte (1GB = 1000MB) of storage A 40 GB is now purchasable for a reasonable sum

It is more prudent to buy large at least 80GB, or larger if you have the funds.

However, check your computerʹs manual to see if it can handle a monster drive before you buy it.


 * Installing Your Hard Drive**

If you are installing an IDE drive, on the same cable as the original drive, you need set the new driveʹs jumpers

This is a small plastic connector on the set of pins at the rear of the drive and where you set the new drive to Slave.

The position of the pins for the Master or Slave setting may vary from one drive to another, so refer to the documentation that came with the drive.

Also there should be an illustration on the drive showing where to place the jumper to set it as a Slave One of the most important things to do before you mount the drive in the computer, is to look on the printed circuit board on the bottom of the drive to find which pin of the data connection is pin 1.

It will be labeled with either a ʺ1ʺ or a solid white triangle.

This information may also be stamped into the drive case near the connector.

The ribbon cable will have a speckled Red edge, and this edge MUST correspond to Pin 1 on the data connector, or the computer will not recognize your new drive.

With a SATA drive, the process is much easier.

Simply plug the power connector into the drive, and connect the drive to the motherboard SATA controller using the supplied SATA cable.

Both connectors are both keyed to prevent improper connection.

With SATA drives, there is no need to change jumper settings,

However, you may need to update your computerʹs BIOS if it canʹt see the drive.

There is a certain amount of screws to fasten in order to keep the drive stable, but these are obvious as to where they go

Now that was not all that difficult was it?