How to Install a Second SATA Hard Drive

Supplies for Installing a Second SATA Hard Drive

Some of the tools you're going to need are a PC, your serial ATA plug and a hard drive.

Instructions for Installing a Second SATA Hard Drive

The first thing you want to do is turn off your PC and then unplug it. There are a few different ways to open up your PC. This computer happens to be tool-less so you can just open up the handle and it comes right off. There are a few other ways you can do that. Sometimes there will be small screws on the back of your door which you just have to unscrew.

Newer computers have what's known as serial ATA hard drives which are smaller and faster and any kind of new computer will probably have it. What we're going to do is install a second internal hard drive right above the internal hard drive. There are a few different ways you can also put a hard drive into your computer. This computer system happens to be tool-less so this little green plastic tray actually pulls right out and allows you to put the hard drive right in. But yours will probably have a small Phillips head screw that is screwed directly into your serial ATA hard drive.

So, once we remove the tray from the computer case, there will be four pegs inside of it that go into the serial ATA hard drive. I'm going to put those in right now. Once they're in, slide those back into place.

Once we have our serial ATA drive installed, there are two things we need to do. One, we need to get power to the hard drive and two, we need to get the information on the hard drive to the computer. We need to use a serial ATA cable to plug directly into the back of the hard drive and plug it into the motherboard. On the bottom part of the motherboard, you will see several serial ATA ports. So, I'm going to plug one into my motherboard and plug the other end directly into the back of my internal hard drive.

The next thing we need to do is get power to the hard drive. The components of your computer are powered by your power supply. From your power supply, there should be a cable coming out specifically to power your internal hard drives. There are two different kinds of cables through which your power supply powers internal hard drives. First is an older style cable that it generally used for IDE hard drives. Newer plugs look like this and are designed for serial ATA hard drives. And those will plug directly into the back like that.

Next thing you want to do is get the front cover. Ours is a tool-less case, so we don't need any of the screws but you may, at this point, need to find the screws that you took off on the back of your computer case and screw those back in.

After you're done closing up your computer, just plug it back in, turn it on an Windows will automatically recognize your new serial ATA hard drive.