Once you have gone through our hard drive upgrade information tutorial, and have bought your new hard drive, you can begin the installation process. Below I will take you by the hand, and help you install a hard drive step by step.

To begin this tutorial we first need to discuss connection types. As of right now there are two main connection types that your new hard drive can use to connect to your computer. Those are SATA and IDE.

IDE - An IDE cable is a big wide grey cable, and chances are any computer that has an IDE cable connection is more than a few years old since new computers these days are all going to SATA, our next connection type.

SATA - The new SATA connection not only has a faster data transfer speed, but they are also much easier to plug into the drive. SATA drives also automatically detect which drive is master or slave, so there is no need to change the settings on the back of the drive like older ones made you do.

Now that connection types are covered, we can continue to install your new hard drive.

Warning: I try to be as helpful and as accurate as possible on my computer tutorials, but things can still go wrong. So we are not responsible for any damage or data lost as a result of this tutorial.

	1. The first step is very important, you must power down your PC, and for a added safety measure make sure you have unplugged the power cord.
	2. Next locate all the screws that hold the computer case or panels together, then unscrew them.
	3. Now it is time to gain access to the interior of the computer case by simply removing the case cover.
	4. If your PC happens to have a removable hard drive bracket, now is the time to remove it. It is specially designed to be removed without hassles, and its absence will make this simple installation project even easier. If not then just move on to the next step.
	5. Now you should look through the instruction manual that came with your hard drive for instructions on how to set the jumpers. Usually, if your system has but a single drive connected to the cable, use the Cable Select setting; this will suffice in most cases when there is only one drive. If another drive exists and will be connected to the same IDE cable, use the Master setting.
	6. Next you can slide your hard drive into the drive bay, then screw it in. Some cases employ a system in which slide rails mount onto the drive for easy inserting and removing from the drive bay (the bracket).
	7. Now if you have that removable drive bay bracket, then now it is time to return it to the inside of the case.
	8. You will find that most ATA/66 and ATA/100 IDE cables have either a blue connector or a connector labeled System Board. In the likely case that this applies to your PC, plug this blue connector into either the IDE0 (Primary) or IDE1 (Secondary) connector on the motherboard. The primary connector is color coded blue, in most cases, to indicate that it should be used for your hard drive. Usually you can insert the cables in only one way, but sometimes the cable is not keyed for one-way insertion, so you should make sure that the red stripe on the IDE cable matches up to Pin 1 on the motherboard.
	9. Attach the connector that is located the farthest distance on the ribbon cable to your hard drive. Usually this connector is black and labeled Primary. Also, make sure that you place the red stripe on the cable at pin 1 of the hard drive's connector if it has the ability to be inserted more then one way.
	10. Now locate a 4-pin power connector from the power supply, and attach it to the hard drive's power connector.
	11. Next, put your computer case or panel back on.
	12. Then tighten the screws to fasten down the case or panel.
	13. Finally, reattach the plug into your computer's power supply.

And now you have learned how to install a hard drive. You have now learned how to install a hard drive and it is ready for operation. Now your computer BIOS must detect the hard drive the next time you power up your PC. Double-check your PC or motherboards user manual for instructions on how to detect a new hard drive.

Perhaps you may need to change some of the parameters in BIOS to detect the hard drive on the controller. You must also partition and format the drive before it can be used with the operating system.

I will help you with that below or you could consult your manufacturer-supplied documentation for additional information on how to install a hard drive.

Software Set Up

If you need to copy all of your contents from your old hard drive to your new one, then I suggest you use data backup software before you even try to install a hard drive. I recommend making a mirror image copy of your hard drive, using hard drive image software. That software will make it easy to make a perfect clone of your current hard drive and restore it on a new one, this way not one drop of data will be lost.

If you need help partitioning and formatting hard drives , then follow those links before and after you install a hard drive.