HOW TO: Installing a SATA Hard Disk Drive

[Fordy]

It's that time of year again, we've all gotten fatter, rolled around in hoards of paper and sung ridiculous carols far out of pitch.

All that remains it to spend that hard-gifted cash on exciting new tech, or setup the hardware on your list given to you by the braver technophobes of your family.

First off, in what will hopefully encompass a great range of How-To's, I'll be explaining in full pictorial form how to install your latest SATA HDD. Brilliant for storing all those new games you got, or downloading the from Steam with all that new-found cash. Or for storing endless legal movies, given by generous friends and family.

Continue reading to expand the realms of your PC's storage...
So you want to install a new SATA Hard Drive, eh? Ok, luckily for you, it's really simple. But just to be sure, and for those of you experiencing your first time insidethe "scary tangled mess" that is the inards of your PC, I'll go through step by step, and with nice pictures too. Aren't I nice.



Safety first I was always taught, and it doesn't seem too bad a motto. Get yourself a nice open space, avoiding clutter and stress. Unplug everything from your PC, lie it down in this space, and then plug the power cord back in, and then plug it into the wall socket.

Make sure it is turned off at the wall, and off at the back of your PC. "Why am I leaving it in?!" I hear you cry, the reason is simple. Earthing. You know the top prong of the UK spec wall plug? That's the earth connection, or ground. By leaving it in, even when off you're still connected to earth. Which means that as long as you are touching the PC chassis, even if you do get electrocuted (Try not to..) then the current has a direct path to earth, an you won't be zapped comic-book style.



So, you're all safe, let the fun commence. This bit will differ slightly, depending on your case.

You need to open it up, so you can get at the inside. The overwhelming majority open on the left-hand side as you face the case. And most have thumb screws on the back to hold it in place. If not, just have a fiddle, you'll soon work out how to get it off - many OEM PC's are held in place by "normal screws", requiring a screwdriver.

Take the fixings out, whatever the are, and store them safely to one side.



Next, find your HDD, it will have come in an anti-static bag, you can take it out, but hang on to the bag. It makes a handy work surface which you can be sure is free of static charge.



Now you need to find the fixings for the HDD caddy inside your PC. They may still be stuck to the HDD bays inside, or you my have removed them/they came separately. Took me some digging but eventually I found the right ones. The rubberised "feet" are to help tackle vibration, as the HDD's are probably the most significant moving parts of your PC (Maybe the fans too..) and they can vibrate a hell of a lot, which without these could cause quite a racket.



Pick it up, and line it up over the screw holes on the bottom of your new HDD, so that all the holes line up and you will be able to screw through.



Once you're happy it's correctly aligned, go ahead and screw it in place. There's no real need for four screws, you can if you want but all my HDD's only have two - purely because Asus didn't give me many!! There's no problem with that, they're only there to hold it steady, so two diagonally opposite each other will do fine.

When that's done, you're ready to pop it inside your case, which will look something like this:



On the left, you can see my motherboard, top left is the PSU (I'll refer back to it in a minute), and bottom right is the HDD bays. Locate an empty slot, and simply slide it in. The final bit may take a bit of a push, so that it clicks into place and won't just slide back out again.



With the hard drive in place, take a look at the connections. You should see a long "L" shape connector, a shorter "L" connector, and four pins poking out.



The longer "L" is used to power the drive, the shorter "L" is the SATA connection, which communicates with the motherboard in order to read/write data; and the four pins are jumper pins - you don't need to worry about those. If there's a jumper cap there, leave it where it is, if not, don't fret either, your model won't require one.

So, you need a female "long L" connector, to power the new drive. There may be one already attached to your PSU, or if not, you can use an adapter like I did, to convert one of the many four pin Molex's on your PSU to a "long L".



This, in turn, can then be plugged into your newly fitted HDD:



Then, you need to simply plug a "short L" SATA cable from the HDD:



Down to the motherboard:



On my motherboard, the 6 SATA sockets are located face up in the bottom right hand corner. However, it is also common for them to be anywhere on the right-hand side, parallel to the PCB.


Congratulations! You (should) have now successfully installed a brand spanking new SATA HDD to your PC. May the disk-filling commence.

--
As you may have guessed, I wrote this originally for my blog, but I figured CJ has a much wider audience, and it can do more good here. I'm not doing it for advertising purposes, I do not know how to prevent the images linking back to my blog... Tey seem to just automatically do it.

If this is deemed in any way inappropriate, or considered advertising or whatever, any mod/admin feel free to take it down, I'd written it anyway so you wouldn't be wasting my time

[anthonyla65]

Well done, nice post.

[Fordy]

Cheers, after weeks of waiting for it, my new HDD finally came, so while I popped it in I decided to take a few snaps so I could write up a how-to.

[akira07]

Thanks Fordy for the tutorial. Actually, I'm already understand about how to install new HD to my computer. My friend taught me to do it in the past. But your tutorial still useful because i found so many people scared if they're asked to install new HDD in their computer system. With this complete tutorial, i'm sure they willing to try.

Anyway, if you don't mind i would like to request a tutorial about using dekstop internal HDD on the laptop. But, i don't know if it's possible or no

[Fordy]

The standard for desktops is to use a 3.5" drive (although nothing prevents you using a 2.5" if you have one), whereas laptops, due to the limited space available, use smaller 2.5" drives.

Thus, if you wanted to use a desktop 3.5" drive with a laptop, you'd have to buy an external drive enclosure, fit the drive to that and then connect to the laptop over eSATA or USB.

[akira07]

Anyway, is that the only one alternative? I think of some "HD Drive hacking" tutorial by using household tool. LOL

I have that 3.5" drive and try that solution. But one of my HD Drive is 750GB SATA. Many enclosure seller said that they're scare of the enclosure have not enough power to afford my HD drive, since they said that the limit of enclosure power is for 500GB. I know it's depend on my enclosure brand type. But, it's rarely for me to find it in my country. I think i should buy it online.

OK, but thanks Fordy.

[Fordy]

Sounds like BS to me, trying to get you to buy a new HDD too.

The power draw shouldn't differ between them, if it does it'd be more to do with different models than the physical capacity of the drive.

The main factor that affects power draw in HDD's is the speed they spin at, 5400rpm, 7200rpm, 15K etc. 7200rpm is the standard, and I would expect you're 750GB drive is, as the 500GB this guy try to sell you too!

[akira07]

Sorry, what is "BS"?

[Fordy]

Erm.. "a load of rubbish".

Check your inbox mate

[akira07]

OK, I'm understand.
I asked that because now I'm working on laptop. My "treasures" is mostly in my desktop HD drive.

[Hybrid]

Cheers, worthy of a stick, thanks!