Hard Drive

[Lunar Knight]

I have yet another problem. How do you install a new internal hard drive on to a computer? I have no idea what to do. Can I transfer files from the old one to the new hard drive or is it not necessary?

Yup, I'm just full of questions, but seriously, I need some help.

[Azurith]

Here are a few things to do:

UNPLUG YOUR MACHINE COMPLETELY.
(This means unplug ANY/ALL power sources..the power cord, network cards, phonelines, monitors, anything that has power MUST be disconnected from the machine. It is a good practice to just disconnect everything and wait about 1 minute before proceeding with anything else. This is to keep you safe from being electrocuted.)
Before you start working with sensitive electrical equipment, ground yourself.
This doesn't mean you need to go and gett a 'grounding bracelet'. Or anything. You simply need to 'touch' a metal part of your case. (Because your case is grounded, you will be too.) Periodically, it is a good idea to touch your case from time to time, to make sure you aren't building up an electrical charge which could potentially 'jump' to equipment and damage expensive boards or circuits..

1. If you have both a hdd and cd-burner, determine if you use 'seperate' IDE cables. (The cables that transfer data to and from the drives.) If you have two, then on to the next question.
If you have only one, you will need to get another cable.. OR live without a cd-rom drive..

2. Next, set your drive's jumper settings.
(The little 'black' connecters on the back of the drive.. they are very very tiny. Do not lose them.)
Your 'main' drive should be 'master' (primary), and the second one should be 'slave' (secondary).
You might have software that came with your new drive to transfer the data to the new one from your old drive.
If not, don't worry about it.
You'll still be able to use the new drive.
You just won't have the OS on the new one.
(You will be using your old drive for windows..)

3. After making sure you have your jumpers set, with a philips screwdriver, reattach your harddrives into the machine. (Just involves placing a few screws to hold the drive in place.)

4. After securely attaching the drives back into the case, attach your ide cables. Your harddrives should ALWAYS be on the 'master' or primary ide channel. (They should be labeled with fine print next to the ide connections on the motherboard..) And keep harddrives and optical drives on seperate ide channels.

5. Next, connect the power.. shouldn't need any help here.. however, do NOT force the 'molex' connectors. (That's what the power connecters that connecto into your harddrive or optical drive are called.) Doing so can cause the molex to be improperly installed.. and can fry your drive.. which is a bad thing. (You shouldn't ever need to 'force' something into place when dealing with pcs.)

6. Reconnect everything that was disconnected before step one. If you know how to get into bios and check your harddisk configurations, good.
(This is the easiest way to see if your drive is correctly installed..)
If not.. well.. just don't mess with your bios, ok..?

7. See if windows might recognize the new drive.
(Some drives will have 'no' parition system when first installed, and will need to be setup.) Most of the time, windows should do this automatically for you.
If using XP, windows will try to use 'NTFS' for the drive, instead of 'Fat32'.
It doesn't matter which you pick. I prefere 'Fat32'.

If windows automatically detects the drive, good.. one last step.
Check to see if your drive is reporting 'close' to all of your space.

If you have a 320GB drive and are only seeing '127GB' of storage space in windows, it is because you need new drivers.
If you had a disc come with your harddrive, install the drivers from that disc.
Otherwise, go to microsoft.com and look for drivers supporting +127GB.
(I can't remember the name of the drivers.)

Shouldn't be hard.

~~Azurith <---Very tired when writing this... enjoy. xD

[Lunar Knight]

Eh, I don't understand in steps 1, 2, and 4 and what is the molex connectors?

I forgot to mention that I have an old computer I don't use any more to familiarize myself with all of the hardware. I don't know if that helps you to help me install the drive, though.

If it's not too much trouble, could you give my some pictures to know which is which? Sorry I'm being very difficult, but I appreciate you helping me a lot.