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Need someone to help you install a new hard drive?

Posted By : cristina of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on December 15, 2004

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I need someone to come to my house and service my comourter and install the new hard drive.

This question was answered on December 15, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.


The first thing i have to ask is. will you really trust a total stranger and bring them into your home?? it isnt safe..

now back to business. you can either buy an anti static wrist strap and do the following...

Physical Installation

Okay, now lets do it If you are only installing a second hard drive or a new one, you can skip down to step 5, although this might help as a reference

Back up your old hard drive, turn the computer off, unplug it, and take the case off You'll want to make sure you back up your old drive first You can do this with a tape-backup drive or some other form of removable storage I'd recommend the later of these options, due to their speed and capacity Also, you may want to make some quick sketches of just how everything is in there: Which direction is everything facing? Where and how are the cables connected? For some people, such sketches help to put everything back when you are done

Remove the cables from the old drive You will see both a wide IDE ribbon cable and a small 4-pin power plug Do not force them out The ribbon cable is usually quite easy to remove Sometimes, though, the power connector can become stuck Just rock it back and forth, taking care not to rip the connector off the drive

Remove the mounting screws that hold the drive to the case frame Sometimes, you may need to tip the case or get into some strange positions to reach all the screws But, that's part of the fun

Remove the old drive from the case Be sure not to bump anything too hard on the way out

Slide the new drive in right where the other one came out If it is smaller than the drive bay ( if you are installing a 3.5" drive into a 5.25" drive bay ), you may need to add rails or a mounting bracket to make it fit If you are adding a second drive, just pick any empty drive bay Screw the drive into place

If you need a separate controller card, install it now into any unused motherboard slot If you are replacing a non-IDE drive with an IDE drive, you'll need to throw a new IDE controller card in Most of today's motherboards have two built-on IDE controllers It is easiest to use these controllers when available, and it saves a slot for something more fun

Attach the cables to the hard drive Just like a floppy drive, connect the ribbon cable and the power cable The ribbon cable goes from the controller to the drive Make sure the red edge of the ribbon cable is in line with Pin 1 on the drive If you place the cable on backwards, you may get strange errors that make your new drive sound like it has died already If you are adding a second drive, simply choose a connector on the same ribbon cable that is not used Most ribbon cables come with three connectors: one on the end and one mid-way, then one further away on the other end which connects to the motherboard In this case, it doesn't matter which plug goes in what drive The computer looks at the master/slave jumpers to see which one is Master Make the second hard drive the slave The manual should show you how to do this on your particular drive, although many drives have the jumper settings conveniently labeled on the drive itself

If you have not yet done so, replace the screws First double check your work, though Also, make sure you use screws short enough not to damage the drive when tightened Do not force the screws to tighten

Plug the system in , and turn it on with your system disk in Drive A: It is best to leave the case cover off for now in case you need to fiddle with something or troubleshoot the installation

New hard drives need to be prepared before they will work You will need to configure it and set the CMOS When you turn the system on, immediately hit the Hot Key sequence necessary to enter CMOS setup A lot of times, this is Delete Go to the section on IDE auto-detection, if your BIOS has this option Follow the prompt under this section and it will auto-detect the drive If your BIOS does not support this, then you will need to manually plug the necessary information into setup for the drive When this is done, exit CMOS and save your changes The system will reboot Leave the system disk in Drive A:

When the system completes boot up, it should stop at the A: prompt Type "fdisk" and hit enter Follow the prompts to partition the drive

When FDISK is done, you should be able to switch to the C: drive, or whatever letter the new drive happens to be Now, all you need to do is format the drive At the A: prompt, type "format x: /s" Replace "x" with the letter of this new drive This will proceed to format the drive and copy necessary system files to it After that, you will be able to boot the system off the new hard drive

Now you can copy files to it or whatever If this is to be your main drive, you can install your operating system now

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Posted by cristina of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on December 15, 2004

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