How to Physically Install a Hard Drive in a Desktop Tower Computer

First off, this is just for desktop computer towers. Laptops are completely different and quite a bit less work to change out a hard drive. Second off, the hard drive is a semi small rectangle box inside your computer that holds all of the information which your computer uses. Including, but not limited to the operating system (example: Windows XP, Windows 98, Windows Vista, Macintosh x.x, Linux), and all the information you have put on there, such as music, games, programs, and pictures. If the hard drive in your computer becomes damaged or unusable then it has to be replaced, and all of your information will be lost.

The materials you'll need are:

Phillips Screwdriver

Hard Drive

This Guide

The hard drive you can pick up at any electronics retail store such as Wal-Mart, Circuit City, Best Buy or any other place you have around you.Or they can be picked up from the Internet for quite a bit cheaper from places like MWave, Directron, TigerDirect, and NewEgg. There are several different types of hard drives to choose from, and several different sizes. At the time of this article Seagate is one of the best hard drives for the price. The average size is 80 gigabytes, but they range from 2 gigabytes up to 500 gigabytes. They do range higher than that, but the prices start getting really high. Shop around a little, and find a hard drive that meets your price acceptance.

There are also several types of hard drives, the most common being IDE, the second most common being SATA, and the least common (mostly for businesses and servers) are SCSI (pronounced Scuzzy). What ever type you take out of your PC is most likely the type you want to put back in your machine. When looking for a hard drive to purchase the type of the drive will be listed, and/or written on the box. If you purchase the drive retail from a store, the sales representative will assist you in choosing the right one. If you don't know which type you need, you can take your hard drive out and take it to any type of computer store and they will be able to tell you what type you need.

Also on a side note: if you do take your computer in to have the hard drive swapped out, they will sell you a hard drive with the labor, but the hard drive will be several bucks more than what you can get on your own.

Once you have the hard drive you are ready to begin the installation. First step is to take the side off of your computer tower. The tower is the part of the computer that your mouse and keyboard connect to. There are to many types of cases for me to go through the steps of opening all of them. Generally your tower will have screws in the back that have to be removed, and the side of the case can be slide back to be removed. Some towers have several screws to be removed on back and then the entire case slides back. Macintosh systems usually have a lever that you pull, and the side just falls down. Some Dell machines have a release button on top and bottom, then opens up like a clam shell.

Once you have your case open, you'll have a view of every thing that makes up a computer in front of you. The motherboard is the large board that every thing connects to. It's the largest part of the computer and will have several cords connected to it. For most computers the hard drive is located in the bottom right corner of the inside. It will have two cords coming off of it, no matter the type of the hard drive. The cord going from hard drive to the motherboard (might be wide and flat for IDE and SCSI, or small and red/blue for SATA) is the data transfer cable. The cord going from the hard drive to the power supply (usually located at the top left of the case, where you power cord connects to on the back of the machine) is where the hard drive gets it's power from, usually having a white casing on the end where it connects directly to the hard drive. Disconnect both of those and let them hang for now. There should be two screws on the side of the hard drive that keeps it in place on the case, or the drive should be in a metal box container that can be removed. Remove the screws that are holding the drive, or holding the metal box (if it is a box, there might be a screw on the bottom of the case as well). You might have to remove the other side of the case to remove the other two screws, then the hard drive can be slid out, and a new one put in it's place.

Once the new one is in there, and the screws have been placed in the correct places, connect the two cords that you removed from the old drive to the same places on this drive. Once every thing is secure, you can put the sides back on your machine and gloat to your friends that you have just become a computer tech! I wish I could say that you are finished and your computer is fully functional now, but I cannot. You still have one more step, and that's to install your operating system on this new hard drive. Since there are so many operating systems to choose from, I cannot list the instructions in this article, but there are several other articles out there that you can choose from to help you from here. But install an operating system is much easier than installing a hard drive, so rest easy and bask in the glory of saving all that money by doing the work yourself instead of a computer tech that would have charged an arm and half a leg to do what you just did. Also remember the fact that the first time is never all that easy, but any time you do this from here on, you'll be able to finish the work in no time, and maybe charge your friends for it! Good luck with your tech career!