Question about how to replace internal hard drive

[jimdagys]

Yes, I know I soon need to replace my internal hard drive. I have a Ghost backup image on DVD, but I know that replacing the hard drive requires more than just physically swapping the drives. Can someone give me an outline of what to do, and also a web link (with screenshots) that I (with limited computer ability) can follow? Thank you for the help.

[CobraPilot]

Most retail replacement 3.5" hard drives come with full instructions and the necessary software to "clone" your current hard drive onto the new hard drive. This is assuming your "old" hard drive is still working.

Basically, you set your current HD to "Master" and the replacement HD to "Slave" and let the software take it from there. That's an oversimplification, and may vary with the manufacturer's software procedures and your particular hardware configuration.

I've had excellent results with Western Digital hard drives, their software, and instructions.

I've even replaced a 2.5" laptop hard drive with a WD retail version, but 2.5" WD drives tend NOT to have the accompanying software because WD considers replacement of laptop HDs to be suitable "by professionals only." The software that came with the 3.5" worked just fine, even when I created a temporary USB external HD of the new one, so I tend to stick with WD drives. (Replaced a 3.5" HD with a Seagate, too, with similar success due to good software and instructions; no experience with a 2.5" Seagate.)

Go to www.google.com and enter "replacing a hard drive" and you'll find all the resources you can imagine. www.westerndigital.com is also useful.

Good luck! Let us hear of your success!

[bevills1]

I've had good results with Western Digital, Maxtor and Seagate software and instructions with a small exception concerning the Seagate. Seagate recommends setting drive jumper to "Cable Select" with which I had some stability issues, and those issues were resolved by setting Seagate drive to "Master" or "Slave" instead of the "Cable Select" Seagate recommended.