installing a secondhand hdd

[snakehelp]

Hi i would like to know how to change my hdd for a bigger hdd but the bigger 0ne is secondhand what i need to do and things i need to look out the bigger hdd hsa been formatted thanks

[vehelpfulguy]

I assume we are talking about a PC rather than a laptop.

Most PC cases can have 2 hard drives in them, so rather than replacing the existing hard drive I would add this second hard drive as a slave.

Your existing hard drive would be the master.

This would save you re-installing Windows and all your applications etc on the new hard drive.

(This assumes your existing hard drive is fine and you are not replacing it because it is faulty)

Fitting a new hard drive is easy if you have done anything like this before, but difficult if you have not, and trying to explain it word by word is difficult.

I will give some guidance on the next append.

[vehelpfulguy]

First: IDE or SATA

Rather confusingly there are two types of hard disks with different connectors.

Older hard disks (say more than a year old) connect to a PC using a connection called IDE.

Many newer hard disks connect to a PC using a connection called SATA.

SATA is gradually replacing IDE.

So the first thing you need to find out is if your existing hard disk is an IDE or SATA.

The next thing you need to find out is if the hard disk you have bought is IDE or SATA.

An IDE cable looks like this (very wide a thin)

http://www.gshop.com.au/images/ide_133_cable.j pg

And it will run from the motherboard in your PC to the back of your hard disk.

A SATA cable looks like this

http://img.alibaba.com/photo/50641287/SATA_Cab le.jpg

Once you have found out if they are IDE or SATA you can go to the next step.

[vehelpfulguy]

Next: Master or Slave

As I said, a PC can have two hard disks.

The main one (that contains Windows) is called the MASTER.

The second one is called the SLAVE.

Hard disks have a very small connector at the back and you need to make sure that the connector is correctly indicating if it is a MASTER or SLAVE.

Look at this picture of the back of a hard disk

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/7706/snap23 zt.jpg

Just to the left of the flat IDE cable is a very small blue connector.

This connector joins two pins together that indicate if the hard disk is a master or slave.

A hard disk will a have label somewhere saying how you set the disk as master or slave.

See this picture as an example:

http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/HDDConfigChart. gif

Your existing hard disk will be set as a master, and if you replace it with your new one you need to set that as master as well.

If you are adding your new hard disk as a second drive then you need to set it as slave.

Confused yet ?

[vehelpfulguy]

REPLACING a hard disk is fairly easy.

A hard disk is usualy held in the case by 4 screws (2 each side)

There are two cables that go into the back of a hard disk, see this picture

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/7706/snap23 zt.jpg

The cable on the right (with the red, yellow and black wires) brings power to the hard disk. This is called a MOLEX connector.

The flat cable next to it is is the IDE cable that plugs into the motherboard.

So the procedure is:

Turn off power

Unplug 2 cables from back of old hard disk

Unscrew 4 screws that hold old hard disk and remove disk.

Set the master / slave connector on the new hard disk.

Put new hard disk in place and do up 4 screws (no too tight)

Push in 2 cables into back of new hard disk.

Power on.

The PC should recognize the new hard disk.

You then need to install Windows, and you should do a format, even though you say it has already been formatted.

[vehelpfulguy]

Adding a new hard disk is slightly more complex.

Most PCs normally have 2 IDE connectors

Each IDE connector can have two devices on it.

So that is 4 devices in all (say 2 hard disks, a DVD drive and a DVD/RW drive)

To fit more than one device to an IDE connector you need an IDE cable with 3 connectors, one each end and one in the middle.

Like this

http://www.wpclipart.com/computer/cables/ide_c able.png

One end plugs into the motherboard, the other end into the MASTER device, the middle connector into the SLAVE device.

So you could put your master and slave hard disks onto the one IDE cable.

You just need to make sure the connector on the back of the hard disk is correct, and that you plug the master disk on the end and the slave disk in the middle.

Here is a diagram showing two devices on the one IDE cable

http://support2.jp.dell.com/docs/storage/7519c /dvd13a.gif

Good luck.