How to connect a hard drive to a computer?

The reason for buying a new hard drive may be a lack of memory or a malfunction of the old one. In either case, you need to know how to connect the hard drive to the computer and successfully use it.

Physical actions

So you bought yourself a new hard drive, brought home and do not know what to do next. Understand how to connect an additional hard drive to a computer is not difficult. First, remove the side cover on the processor. There you will see a lot of connectors. Connectors for hard disks come in two types:

• SATA - released since 2009, installed on all new PCs;
• IDE - quite an old model, but still found on sale.

If you bought a hard drive and its connector does not fit your PC, do not rush it back to the store. You can buy additional adapters to it, which you may need when connecting to other computers.

Your new hard drive will be on the computer second in the list. Before starting the installation, you must completely disconnect the PC. Let's figure out how to connect two hard drives to the computer. To do this, you need to perform the following actions:

1. Connect the socket to the motherboard. Usually the connection point is colored brightly. Do not try to switch the old hard drive or put a new one in its place, since the Windows boot is made from the main disk.
2. Locate the two slots on the power supply and connect to the hard drive. It is impossible to make a mistake here, because the connectors of different sizes fit exactly those that are responsible for connecting the hard drive.
3. If you did not find the correct socket, then most likely your hard drive has a different kind of connection. In this situation, you need a special adapter. Connect the nests to it, and only then to the hard drive.
4. Start the computer.

It is advisable to place the second hard disk just above (below) the first hard disk to avoid overheating. In this way, you can connect three hard drives immediately, if necessary.

Installing the Hard Drive in the System

As a rule, after turning on the computer, a notification should appear on the screen about the connection of the new device. If the computer does not see the hard drive, then do the following:

1. Go to My Computer - Manage - Disk Management
2. Click on the initialization window
3. In the next window, put a letter with the name of the disk
4. Close the installation and management window
5. Format the hard drive. You can find this operation in the context menu of the hard drive.

Transferring data to another computer

You may have a situation where you need to transfer a large amount of data to another computer. Of course, you can use the cloud service on the Internet. But it's much easier and faster to connect the hard drive to the right PC. Let's look at how to connect a hard drive to another computer.

First, save the image and archive the files on your hard drive. Then you can unscrew it from the system unit and connect it to another computer in the usual way. If the other computer does not see the hard drive connected, then turn it on through "Management", but do not format it. To connect the hard drive from the laptop to the computer, perform the same operation.

At the moment on sale you can find special boxes for the hard drive. They look like an ordinary box with a pocket into which a hard disk is inserted. Connection is via usb cable. Such devices are only recently released and they will easily solve the problem of how to connect an additional hard drive to the computer.