Installing a hard drive - DIY request

[Hank Kinsley]

I just got a 2nd hard drive and was wondering if someone knew of a good site that would help me install it? It's a Seagate and I noticed that they had 'Diskwizard' software to install new drives. Is this a good app? I don't want to be bogged down by extra programs!

[redwudz]

SATA or PATA? If it's SATA it a bit easier of a install.

If you are asking about the mechanical part of installing, does your drive come with a cable and screws? Probably, if it came with software.
Find a good location, some spacing from other HDDs helps air circulation. Mounting depends on the case. Some use screws, some have tool-less mounts.

With SATA there's no jumpers to set. Each drive has it's own channel. Most times you can plug it into any available SATA socket. SATA drives use different power connectors, so if you power supply doesn't have a free one, your drive may come with a adapter.

Once it's all plugged in, boot the computer and go to 'Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management (Local)' and you should see your new drive. Right click on it and it should offer to partition and format it. I would use quick format unless you want to wait quite a while. That's about it. The last part is the same with a PATA drive.

Or you can use the included software for all this. Works about the same. But it's good to know about the Computer Management method.

[ahhaa]

What Red said. Have fun doing it!

Save the Discwizard program; one thing else it does is let you 'clone' your primary drive onto a bigger/newer HD. Might want to do that sometime, if AV suites keep getting bigger...

The only other thing is that the round cables are much easier to route, and allow better air circulation, but be sure the one you have is long enough.

[midders]

I would use quick format unless you want to wait quite a while.

Quick format is faster, but I'd always recommend formatting a new hard drive the long way round at least the first time as this will ensure that any bad sectors on the disk are identified and marked as not to be used. They probably do this a the factory now, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Sláinte

midders

[Hank Kinsley]

Thanks guys. I did choose the long format on the first go-round just for that reason. Anyway, it's up and running good so far so I'm stoked! Thanks for the help guys.

[redwudz]

I would rather do a long format on an older used drives that may be more likely to have problems, but if you don't mind the wait, a long format is still not a bad idea.

But glad it all worked out. Enjoy your new storage space.