How to replace your computer hard drive

When your computer hardware components, such as your hard drive, dies or you just need to upgrade, don't pay big dollars for a computer technician or IT guy. Upgrade it yourself! Once you have done this you will realize how easy it is. hard drive diagram - Free Computer Help

To upgrade your hard drive you will need:

A replacement hard drive. If it is second-hand you should test it and format in an external hard drive case.
You should know How To Open a computer case safely.
A Phillips head screw driver
That's it, presuming you are just upgrading and have an existing computer with a motherboard with IDE cables still attached to it.

How to remove and upgrade your computer's hard drive

Firstly you must make sure the power is off on your computer, remove all plugs at the back. WARNING: You are dealing with an electrical item, proceed at own risk. Don't forget to read How To Open a computer case safely.
Open case, usually with a Phillips head screw driver.
Take note of how your old hard drive is plugged in and where. Then remove it. When you do not know anything, the key is to copy exactly what you have seen. (This is how I taught myself)
There are three parts at the back of the hard drive. 1=Where the IDE cable goes. 2=Jumper setting pins. 3=Where the power goes. How to set jumper settings.
On your replacement hard drive there will be a diagram of the jumper setting. Set it to cable select or master if it is the only hard drive in the computer. If set wrong the system may not find or recognise the hard drive.
Plug in the IDE. It will have a little notch in the top to show which way the cable goes in.
Connect the power that runs from the computers power supply to the back of the hard drive.. See picture below. The power supply will also have the motherboard and any cd drives connected to it.
Close your computer case, plug all of your cables, and turn the power on.
The hard part comes now. You have to format and install an operating system.

Here's how to format using Windows XP or Vista

NOTES:

A blue end on the IDE cable means it is a cable select. A normal black one means you have to set the hard drive jumpers to either master or slave.
A master gets plugged into the end of the IDE cable.
If you want to upgrade your hard drive yourself but are still not sure, try asking someone if you can watch them do it first. If you do not know anyone to watch, try looking for a tutorial on Youtube.com.
If you wanted to add another hard drive you should have a master and a slave, selected with the jumper pins at the back of the harddrive. However the easiest way is to set them both to cable select. Then connect them on the same IDE Cable( they usually have two connections) but put the main hard drive on the last or end connection of the IDE cable. This way the one connected on the lower is the slave.

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