Installing a Hard Drive

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Guest

I have a hard drive in an old computer which I would like to remove and
install into my new computer. I want to make this hard drive a secondary
hard drive in my new computer.

How do I go about doing removing and installing the hard drive or would it
be better for me to take the computer to a professional? Would my new
computer automatically recognize the hard drive or do I have to change some
settings somewhere in the BIOS?

I would also have to remove all the programs and operating system from the
old hard drive.
 
Yvonne said:
I have a hard drive in an old computer which I would like to remove
and
install into my new computer. I want to make this hard drive a
secondary hard drive in my new computer.

How do I go about doing removing and installing the hard drive or
would it
be better for me to take the computer to a professional? Would my new
computer automatically recognize the hard drive or do I have to change
some settings somewhere in the BIOS?

I would also have to remove all the programs and operating system from
the old hard drive.
Click to expand...

Open the old computer's case and unscrew the hard drive. How you do this
will depend on the case construction. Handle the hard drive carefully,
trying not to touch the circuit board.

Now that you have the old hard drive out, jumper it as slave. To
determine the jumper settings, either look at the hard drive itself
(some have jumper settings printed on them) or go to the drive mftr.'s
website and look for jumper settings for that model hard drive.

With the new computer turned off and unplugged, attach the old hard
drive to the ribbon cable in the slave position on IDE0. If the new
computer's drive is SATA, you'll need an IDE controller card if the
motherboard doesn't have a free IDE connector and adjust the jumpering
accordingly. IIRC, SATA drives don't use jumpers like PATA drives do.

Turn on the computer and the old drive should be recognized in the BIOS.
If it is, boot into XP. Then use Computer Management to format the old
drive.

This is a very easy process and there is no reason you can't do this
yourself. If you get started and decide it's too much to deal with, you
can always take the machine into a professional shop.

Malke
 
Just curious - what does "IDE0", "IIRC", "SATA", and "PATA" mean or is there
a definition?

Yvonne
 
Yvonne said:
Just curious - what does "IDE0", "IIRC", "SATA", and "PATA" mean or is
there a definition?
Click to expand...

When curious, use Google.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define+IDE&btnG=Google+Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=define+IIRC&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=define+SATA&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=define+PATA&btnG=Search

And here's a site that is useful for learning about PC components,
building, etc:

http://www.pcguide.com/

Malke
 
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