Installing hard drives

Installing hard drives is the easy part the hard part is configuring the hard drive to the computer operating system. Take note, that I mentioned hard but not impossible. It would also be different when it comes to installing the primary hard drive and the secondary hard drive. For this article, we will be tackling how to install the primary hard drive.

Installing Hard Drives

The first thing that you have to do is to open the casing of the computer for you to install the hard drive. Presently, the set up for recent computers are the mini tower design which has side panels that are normally screwed on the chassis. Locate the panel that is located just above the mother board and loosen the screws that are holding it in place before sliding off the panel. For the older computer designs, you would need to unscrew all the screws in the back before you can slide the panel off. After sliding off the panel, you need to configure the hard drive by setting the drive jumpers. You will see a pair of metal pins located at the back of your hard drive. After locating the metal pins, set the jumper to “cable select” if you are only installing one hard drive. If you are installing more than one hard drives then choose “master” for the main drive.

The next thing that you have to do when installing hard drives is to be able to insert the hard drive in to the correct hard drive casing. Before doing so, carefully examine and check the case design of your hard drive.  Check if you have the removable drive bay inside the hard drive case. Technically,  the removable drive bay is easier to handle since you can just remove it and insert the hard drive compared to the one that cannot be removed because you have to poke around inside.With the removable bay, you just pull it out and align the mounting holes on the drive bay to the hard drive and just screw them together before returning the removable hard drive casing. Now, if you have the one that is not removable, simply insert the hard drive inside the case slowly, make sure that he alignment of the mounting holes are correct before screwing it in place.

After this is done, attach the IDE cable to the mother board and then next is to attach the power cable. Now, install the IDE cable to the mother board. The IDE cable is usually color coded to avoid confusion.
It is usually colored blue at the bottom with a red stripe on the side. Insert this cable in the IDE0 which is considered as the primary or the IDE1 called as the secondary connector. Plug the four pin connectors from the power supply at the back of the hard drive.

 Once you are done with all these, just screw the panels back on and restore the computer chassis to its computer case. Turn the switch on and proceed to attaching the AC cord.Once the computer is on, the system will automatically detect the new hard drive installed. Normally, you have to configure the BIOS first and to configure settings before you are done. Once configuration is done, you can now use your computer for any purpose.