Installing A New Hard Disk Drive – A Beginners Guide
Random Access Memory (RAM) in our computers most effective holds information at the same time as the laptop is became on. Your phrase processor sits in RAM – as does that 5 web page document you spent two hours typing in.
Turn your computer off, or (heaven forbid) you have a energy reduce, the contents of RAM is emptied and the phrase processor along side all that paintings in reality disappears in a flash. You obviously need a manner to keep your paintings and that is in which the tough disk force (hdd) comes in.
Essentially magnetic media, the disc (or platter) inside the hdd works in a similar way to a cassette tape in as tons because the facts on it does not disappear while the energy is grew to become off.
But, after we have had our computers for some time, the hdd can either top off or even begin to fail, causing sluggish loading times and mistakes messages. In this text, we will take a look at the former – adding any other hdd whilst your modern hdd is full.
How long your tough disk takes to refill relies upon on how big it’s far and what you operate your pc for.
For a everyday computer user, this can take a totally long time. In fact, a few users will in no way fill the hdd of their computer.
But, in case you’ve taken up beginner photography for instance, and take loads of pictures a week, you can top off the hdd in some months. If you’ve sold a new video digital camera and want to create, edit and store movies, filling a hdd can appear a good deal quicker.
So if you get a message for your screen telling you which you are becoming low on disk area, it’s time to begin deleting stuff… Or type out a new hdd.
Yes, you could continually plug in an outside USB hard disk, however if you are on a price range, you could match an internal hdd for loads much less – or spend the same and get a much larger hdd!
The actual manner in all fairness clear-cut and if you realize a way to use a screwdriver you ought to discover it quite clean.
Preparation:
The first aspect I do is take a look at the pc’s BIOS to see the contemporary hdd configuration. The probabilities are that the BIOS display screen is some thing you’ve by no means seen earlier than and I strongly Data cabling sydney advocate that after doing what I’m going to speak you thru now, you don’t move into it again.
We are simplest going to take a look at present settings now, however there are things inside the BIOS that you may exchange to the wrong values and even though your pc may not blow up or whatever drastic like that, you can stop Windows loading or maybe prevent your laptop from switching on.
To get to the BIOS, activate (or restart) your pc and watch the bottom of the display for a message which tells you what to press to go into the Setup display.
On most computer systems it’s the Del key (the Supr key on Spanish keyboards in which I stay), however on some computer systems it is the F2 or F10 key. I’ve even visible the Ctrl+S aggregate used.
Once you’ve seen what key(s) you have to press on the display, hit the Reset button at the the front of your pc and begin tapping the specified key(s) while you pay attention your computer ‘beep’.
If all goes well, you must see a simple textual content screen (both blue or black) and the words BIOS or Setup on the pinnacle of the display in conjunction with the name of the organization who made the BIOS. Depending at the motherboard for your pc this could be Award (Phoenix), AMI (American Megatrends Inc) or some other organization.
Award’s Phoenix bios might be the maximum commonplace and consists of a number of ‘pages’ – displayed in columns. Using the up, down, left and right cursor keys, you highlight the web page you need and press the input key to enter the web page. Pressing the Esc key backs out and returns to the previous screen.
Each web page consists of a number of options which you could change. Right now, we best need to have a look at the hdd configuration and NOT trade some thing, so that is all I’m going to mention approximately the BIOS for now.
Other manufacturers BIOS screens paintings in precisely the same manner, however rather than columns there may be a unmarried column or maybe a menu running horizontally throughout the top of the display screen.
To see the hdd configuration in a Phoenix Award BIOS, you want to spotlight the Standard CMOS Features page and press Enter.
My personal laptop has the AMI BIOS with the menu going for walks throughout the top and the equivalent of Award’s Standard CMOS Features web page is the primary page you notice and is entitled ‘Main’ – you do not need to pick out anything else.
On this web page, it suggests all the available hdd ports (IDE and SATA) and the version call of the hdd that is connected to it. Models starting with ST are Seagate drives and people starting with WDC are Western Digital drives. Samsung and Toshiba certainly say Samsung and Toshiba within the model name.
If no hdd is hooked up to a port it could display ‘Not Detected’. My Asus motherboard simplest has a single IDE port (supporting two IDE drives, master and slave), in conjunction with 4 SATA ports. Your BIOS will probably be distinctive. It can also only show ports that drives are definitely related to.
If your BIOS isn’t always like those noted, you’ll simply should open each page in flip, searching out point out of Primary IDE Master, Slave, or SATA 1, 2, three, four and many others. Remember, spotlight a page, press Enter to go in and press the Esc key to returned out if it does not incorporate the information you are seeking out.
When you get to the screen which indicates the drives to your laptop, word down what they may be related to. This consists of any CD/DVD-ROM drives.
This data tells you what ports are unfastened to connect the new power to, but it is also a short indication of ways successful the task changed into whilst you’ve finished. If you bought the entirety proper, the new drive will seem on the list. If not, it won’t appear and if you bought the settings wrong on an IDE drive, the force that turned into there before you started out could also disappear off the listing!
Having got the data we want, as we’ve got no longer made any modifications within the BIOS, we are able to maintain down the on/off button for five seconds to turn off the laptop.
Before we genuinely start, you need to work out what you’ll need for the job – other than a Phillips move-head screwdriver. For instance, as a laptop engineer, I actually have a huge stock of cables I can pick out from, but the probabilities are which you do not. The cable you purchase (in case you really want one) relies upon on the hdd you buy.
As there are extraordinary forms of hdd, whilst you pop down to the nearby pc store, your buying list needs to have an appropriate items on it. In a nutshell, you want to take a look internal your computer to look what is in there already and what you could upload.
So, turn off the electricity switch in the back of the laptop (if there may be one) and unplug all of the cables.
If you aren’t sure where all the cables pass, spend a couple of minutes drawing a image for later on whilst everything is plugged lower back in. To be sincere, aside from USB devices, most of the cables will simplest plug into one hollow.
All USB gadgets should work irrespective of which USB socket they may be plugged into, however you could keep your self feasible future hassles with the aid of plugging all of them again in precisely the identical region you unplugged them from. So if not anything else, word wherein each USB plug is going.
If you have a wellknown case desktop PC, you simply want to cast off the panel on the left hand facet (while searching at it from the the front).
The aspect panel could have a 90º lip on the returned facet and there will be Phillips screws securing it in place. Remove those screws and slide the side panel in the direction of the again of the laptop and raise it away.
Note: If you have a branded laptop like a Dell, HP and many others. Starting it up can be unique so that you will want to consult the documentation which got here with it.
Also, if it’s miles still in warranty, (with a bit of luck by now it won’t be), then beginning the case may additionally void the warranty, so be aware about this. It must be stated but that in case you took it to your nearby pc keep, they too might should open it up, so the result would be the equal…
In a wellknown laptop case, the CD-ROM/DVD force(s) and difficult disks might be installed in bays on the the front of the case. Optical drives like CD and DVD’s move in the large bays at the pinnacle and the hdd’s within the smaller, three.Five” bays underneath.
Locate your hdd and have a look at the returned cease which protrudes out of the rear of the bay. There are essentially three most important styles of hdd – IDE/ATA, SATA and SCSI.
IDE is still the maximum generally observed sort of hdd out inside the wild, but is slowly being replaced by the quicker SATA widespread. All new computers sold these days have SATA drives. SCSI is not often used in relation to IDE and SATA, but is still available and tends to be observed only in greater specialist computer systems.
What Drive Do I Have Already?
All 3 types of drives are pretty a great deal equal in physical length, however differ in the cables used to attach them to the gadget. As we need to look interior your laptop to discover what loose connectors are available, at the same time as we do this we also can without problems check what type of power(s) you have got already.
How To Detect If You Have An IDE/ATA Drive:
IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) is the authentic Western Digital name for the interface preferred which subsequently evolved into the ATA (AT Attachment) interface wellknown currently in use these days.
Older motherboards had 2 IDE connectors (number one and secondary) and with each one being able to aid a master and slave tool, up to 4 drives (any combination tough disks or CD-ROMs) can be linked.
ATA drive information cables are flat ribbon cables, normally gray, about 5cm huge and having three x 40 pin connectors attached – one at each cease and another part of the manner alongside it.
If you currently have a unmarried IDE/ATA drive, the ribbon cable could be related to the motherboard at one give up, to the drive possibly the use of the ‘master’ connector at the other stop and have a spare unused ‘slave’ connector round 15-20cm from the stop.
Note: If you furthermore may have an IDE CD-ROM or DVD drive, it may be connected to the slave connector at the equal primary IDE cable because the hdd, or attached on it’s own using the secondary IDE cable.
Looking in the back of an IDE hdd, the 4 pin Molex 8981 strength connector is positioned on the a ways proper and the connector plug is woman with 1 red, 1 yellow and a couple of black wires.
How To Detect If You Have A SATA Drive:
Serial ATA (SATA) drives first appeared in 2003 and have been faster versions of the previous ATA (IDE) drives. ATA became finally renamed to Parallel ATA (PATA).
Today, nearly all new computer systems, laptops and netbooks are furnished with SATA drives as preferred. Although most new motherboards nonetheless have a single old IDE connector on them for backwards compatibility, they usually have 4 or greater of the more moderen SATA connectors.
SATA facts cables also are flattened, however not as flat as IDE ribbon cables and nowhere close to as wide. At round 1cm wide and barely thicker, they arrive in diverse colorations. I actually have crimson, blue, yellow and black SATA information cables.
Unlike IDE cables although, they only have one drive connector. As such, each SATA power needs it is very own records cable.
If you’ve got a SATA force, observe the flat facts cable again to the motherboard and also you must see that it plugs right into a SATA socket. There should be 4, but it would not rely so long as there’s one loose.
Looking behind the hdd, the SATA electricity connector is positioned at the some distance left and the power cable has 1 purple, 1 yellow, 1 black and 1 orange twine. The facts cable plugs in just to the right of the strength cable with little or no hole between.
Most present day power supplies have both IDE and SATA energy connectors.