Topic: Installing a hard drive?

[Hexx]

Hi all

Sooo the HD on my main system seems to have decided to die before I got the stuff off of it- so kinda miffed, but

Anyone know how hard is it to install a new HD? Opened up the box and noticed mine was only conected to the rest of the system by two cords, one to the power and one to (I'm assuming) the motherboard. Weird cuz the last time I looked at an older sytem they had those big duct-tape looking things attached, anyway I digress..

I think I'm going to have to replace the power cord from the power supply to the HD-noticed it wasn't clipping in correctly, dunno if I can just tape it in or not but..

Anyway (anotehr digression sorry) will most HD's simply be able to work if I plug those two cords in ? (And get a driver diskette?)
Just curious, figure it's probably only $30-60 to get them to install it, but
A) that's $30-60
B) usually these things seem to take a few days, I want the system back soonest.

[FCM_SFHQ_XC]

Most harddrives you get you just
Set to Master or Slave(Master for Boot Drive, Slave for secondary drive), insert it into a 3.5 in bay, attach the power cord from the power supply, then attach the UATA/or SATA cable to the drive. 99% of the time a CD isnt required to install it, and on boot up the OS installs it automatically. Of course be sure that your not getting some sorta odd HDD as some wont work with some motherboards, but mostly they are all compatiable.

[Hexx]

Thanks again!

Looks like I'll be seeing if I can electrocute myself tomorrow ! 

[Lloyd007]

Installing a hard drive is easy. But you need to know three things. First is your HD ide or sata. IDE has the big ribbon (duct tape) cables and uses a 4 pin white power connector directly from the power supply. SATA uses thin cables (usually red) and has a special power connector that you have to hook up to a 4 pin white power connector. IDE does occasionally have thin space saver cables but the easy way to tell a thin IDE cable from SATA is to look at the ends where IDE will be much larger and flare out from the cable while SATA has a very small connection and doesn't flare out.

Second take a look at your motherboard. If you have the older IDE standard you might not have an SATA port. Take a look at this motherboard as it has a pretty clear view and has an image which describes all the ports http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131182

If you don't have SATA they still make ide drives.

Finally look up how to build a computer there are tons of useful illustrated guides. When I built my first computer I used sharkyextreme's guide but its a bit dated.

[Don Karnage]

also you can tell us how big is your HD, this computer have a 80 GIG HD and a 200 GIG HD, i can install another big HD in it or a small one.

if its a big like 200 GIG its easy to do, you should have a red cable that connect to your bother board, on your mother board there should be a pack of 4 small connector place in groupe of 2 beside each other and 2 under it, just plug that red cable in any of them and the connector with 4 wire also.

if you need more help just ask and someone will tell you how to do it.                                                         

[Hexx]

Thanks All!
Picked up a 320GB
The drive is now installed and is downloading like a million or so Windows updates...
Of coruse all my movies, music and stuff is gone <sob> so that'll take a bit of time to redo them all, but I guess it'll keep me out of trouble.


Hexx the manly installer of hard drives.

[Lloyd007]

Congratulations. 320GB is good. You might also want to think of purchasing an external HD for contingency and other stuff. A 320-500gb one can be had for $100 and I find them great especially since my computer has an eSATA interface which makes the external just as fast as the internal!