When you purchased your PC, surely it came with a hard drive already installed in it. This hard drive contains your operating system, which in turn keeps your PC running. However, the storage space that one hard drive gives you may not be enough for your all your documents, digital photos, digital music, and other files. Under these circumstances, you can install a second hard drive in your computer. This will increase your total available storage space multifold. Besides, the second hard drive will also not have any operating system installed, so it will give you extra space to hold all of your files.

Before you start installing a second hard drive on your PC, check whether you have everything you need to carry out the installation. The equipments you will need are, an IDE hard drive, 4 screws for securing the drive into place (these come with the hard drive when you purchase it), a cross-point screwdriver with one IDE cable (if required) and an anti-static wrist strap (to prevent static electricity from damaging the new hard drive).

First, turn off your PC and disconnect the power cables. Next, go through the manufacturer’s user manual that came with the hard drive. You will find that there is something written about the master and slave pins of the hard drive. Concentrate on this part, because this will be crucial in ensuring proper running of the drive after installation.

Now put on the wrist strap, and take out the hard drive from the package. Next, check the data cable of your present hard disk. The data cable is the thin, wide cable of grey or white color, which is connected to your hard disk. If the cable has a free port, you can use that to connect your new hard drive with your PC. Now insert the hard drive gently into a free slot of your cabinet, preferably a little distance above your present hard disk. Make sure that there is a little space left between your old and new hard drives. Secure the hard drive by lining up the screw holes on the side of the drive with the screw holes in the cabinet, and fixing the 4 screws in 4 screw holes.

Now, adjust the master/ slave pin as per the manufacturer’s instructions in the manual. After that, simply connect the data cable and the power cord to your new hard drive. Close the cabinet, reconnect the cables and turn on the PC. You’re done.

Installing a new hard drive will provide your PC with lots of extra storage space. So, if your hard drive is running out of space and becoming sluggish in its performance, then go ahead. Install another hard drive to answer all your storage problems at one go.