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Home >> Hard Drives & RAID >> Resources - HDD >> 

How to Upgrade and Install a New Hard Drive?

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The following advice is based on many years of experience. They are provided as a free service to our customers and visitors. However, Directron.com is not responsible for any damage as a result of following any of these advice. You are welcome to distribute these tips free to your friends and associates as long as it's not for commercial purposes.

How to Mount and Connect a New IDE Hard Drive?
How to Partition and Format a New Hard Drive?
How to Install Microsoft Windows 95 on a Newly Formated Hard Drive?
How to Install Microsoft Windows 98 on a Newly Formatted Hard Drive?
Other Resources


Notes: Before you install the new Hard Drive (HD) there are a few facts that need to be known. First of all, when installing two hard drives or any two IDE devices on the same IDE Channel (controller) you must reset the jumper settings on both drivers. Set one to Master and the other to Slave. Only two IDE devices will work per IDE Channel, sharing the same IDE cable. There are typically two IDE Channels (Primary and Secondary) on one motherboard for a total of four IDE devices allowed per system. For example, if you have a HD and a CD-ROM at the present time, you can add two more hard drives or one more hard drive and an IDE backup device. If a new hard drive is being installed onto the same Channel as the old one, make sure the original drive is set to Master and the new hard drive is set to Slave or vice versa, depending on which will be the bootable drive. If two hard drives use separate cables, both may be set as Masters.

Always use your bootable hard drive where your operating system is installed as Master on the Primary channel. Avoid sharing the IDE cable if you can. If a new hard drive is added to an old one, chances are the new one is faster and has more capacity than the older one. We suggest to use the new one as the bootable drive and the old one as a back up. After all, hard drives are much faster than the tape drives as a backup. The chance for two hard drives to go bad at the same time is very small.

The limitations described above do not apply to SCSI devices. For instance, up to seven SCSI devices can be used for the same SCSI Channel (controller) and no Master/Slave jump setting is necessary.

Hard drives must be partitioned and formatted before use. It's like the lanes on a new running field must be marked before athlets are introduced.

How to Mount and Connect a New IDE Hard Drive?
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1. Power off the computer and remove all cables from the back of the computer.

2. Carefully remove the case screws then remove the case cover.

3. Secure the Hard Drive into the mounting bay using (4) course threaded screws. (Use the hard drive screws. DO NOT use case screws.)

4. Look at the current configuration of the computer to determine if there is an extra IDE port on your current IDE cable(s). If there are only one IDE cable and already two IDE devices, a new IDE cable must be purchased. Plug the new IDE cable into the Secondary IDE channel on the motherboard. (Be careful, watch the polarity. Match the red line on the IDE ribbon cable with Pin 1 of the IDE Channel). If there is one IDE cable with only one IDE device or two IDE cables with three or less IDE devices, there is a spare IDE port.

5. After the drive is secure, plug in the new or spare IDE port to the new hard drive. (Be careful, there is only one way to plug the IDE cable. Red pin closest to the 4-pin Power.)

6. Plug the P4 Power cable into the new hard drive.

7. Carefully put the case cover back onto the case and secure it with the case screws that were previously removed.

8. Plug all required cables into the computer and then power up the system.

9. Enter the Computer CMOS and use the Auto IDE Detection feature and then save the changes made to the CMOS and exit. This will reboot your computer.

10. Now the hard drive is mounted and connected. See next section on how to partition and format a new hard drive.

How to Partition and Format a New Hard Drive?
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1. After you have physically installed the hard drive and detected it in your system BIOS, you will need a Bootable Diskette. This diskette should contain the following Files: Fdisk.exe and Format.com. The diskette you use should be a bootable diskette.

2. Insert the bootable diskette into the 1.44MB floppy drive and power on the computer.

3. When at the "A:\>" prompt, type DIR and it should show three files, Fdisk.exe, Format.com and Command.com.

4. At this point, a Partition is needed so that DOS and Windows will see the new hard drive. At A:\> type Fdisk then press enter.

5. The First screen is going to ask if Large Disk Support is desired on the new hard drive, if using Windows95, select No. If using Windows98, select yes.

6. At the Fdisk Menu, a new partition is what is needed, select #1 and press Enter

7. Then Select #1 for Primary DOS partition and press Enter

8. Fdisk will ask if the end-user want to use maximum disk space. This will allow the end-user to set various sizes of partitions to a hard drive.

9. Fdisk will ask the End-user if they want to set a specific name to the partition, if a name is not desired the press Enter when prompted.

10. After Partition is set, reboot and leave the bootable floppy in the 1.44 Floppy Drive.

11. When "A:\>" is up, type Format c: /s/q (/s = make bootable, /q = format quickly)

12. After format is complete, remove the bootable floppy and reboot the computer. Now your new hard drive is ready for operating system. Select the following links for installation guides.

Microsoft Windows 95 Installation Guide
Microsoft Windows 98 Installation Guide
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If you find this article useful, please create a link to it from your website or tell a friend about it. If you have any comments or suggestions about this article, please email information@directron.us



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