My 160g is full because of my photography and other normal stuff. I have a 500g back-up hooked up through USB. Can I add an internal hard drive to my computer so I will have 2 internals and is this a complicated thing to do? My computer is a few years old ( here's a link for it's info: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...name=c00054872 ). I really don't want another computer to replace this one, but need more space and want to keep the 500g as a back-up only. Thanks gurus

 

Looks like there should be one drive bay available to add the drive:
Drive bays (total)
Bay type Quantity
5.25-inch, external Two (both occupied)
3.5-inch, external Two (both occupied)
3.5-inch, internal Two (one available)

Adding a new drive is pretty easy. Just make sure you get the right one for your computer - probably just a standard ATA drive (not SATA). Depending on how things are connected, you might need to swap cables from one of your other drives to plug in the new drive. Check the cables that connect to your existing hard drive and CD and DVD drives. If there is an open connector on one of those, then you will not need to swap anything.

I might be getting in to too much detail off the bat, but generally it is fairly easy to do.

 

LKLD,

Any reason not to use an external drive? Aside form needing it's own power supply, this would be the easiest from an installation point of view, although cooling is best inside the computer case.

Otherwise, open up your case and see if what kind of drive you need:

Flat wide cable (three to four fingers wide) to drive - PATA
Narrow (index finger or less) - SATA

 

Thanks so much!

USB...well I've got that pretty much maxed out now with webcam, card reader, iPod, etc.. I 'll open it up tomorrow and see about the cables. If I needed to, I could eliminate the floopy or built in card reader if it would make it easier. I'll let you know what I find, so as I get it right.

 

IIRC, the floppy drive uses a different dable connector than the HD and CD/DVD drives, so the ribbon cable (PATA - thanks stogie it's been a while and I forgot the terms) from the floppy may not work on the HD. Verify this when you open up the case. Just make sure you unplug it first

There are also some things you will need to do in windows after the physical installation like format the drive. There should be plenty of info on the web and even on the MS website.

 

Thanks Moe!

Here are a couple of pics of the inside of my computer.





I just need to know what type of HD and where and how to install or replace if....say I use the cd space which I rarely use. Been looking at Newegg, but I'm not sure which to get for my situation. Thanks all.

 

I can't tell for sure what is going on at the bottom right of your computer. You have a Maxtor HD there, but it looks like the PATA ribbon that connects to it also connects to another drive to the right. Can you verify what, if anything is connected there? That is where I was expecting the new HD to be installed.

As for the type of HD, find the model number on your Maxtor drive, search for specs and post results. Then we can help guide you better.

 

Drive is most likely IDE ATA100. You can get a 500GB model from newegg for ~$75.

Look at this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-111-_-Product

Stay away from the Hitachi "Death Stars".