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Step 11-How to Install Hard Drive
This article will cover the configure and install hard drive tutorial. Prepare your drives before you start the install hard drive steps. Trying to put one of the tiny plastic jumpers on a drive inside the computer with a pair of needle nosed pliers while holding a flashlight between your teeth is not much fun.
There are two basic interface technologies used for hard drives. They are parallel ATA and serial ATA. Parallel ATA has been around for some time while serial ATA is the relative newcomer.
PARALLEL ATA
You can connect up two devices to a parallel IDE port. A motherboard usually has two IDE ports. That gives you a total of up to four drives you can add. Setting a jumper designates each drive as a master or a slave which allows one cable to connect two drives to a single IDE channel or port. Parallel Ata is the method used to connect the Western Digital 80 GB hard drive to the Asus P4P8x motherboard in this tutorial. Parallel ATA drives use flat ribbon cables or the newer rounded cables to connect the drives to the motherboard. The round cables offer less restriction to air flow so use them if possible.
SERIAL ATA Preparing a serial drive is much easier than a parallel ATA drive because their are no jumpers to set. However,you can only add one drive per channel. Your motherboard has to be SATA capable as well unless you're using a SATA PCI host card. SATA hard drives offer some benefits over parallel ATA hard drives. They are faster at data transfer and they are easier to set up(they don't use the plastic pin jumpers). INSTALL HARD DRIVE
A parallel ATA drive needs to be within 18 inches of your motherboard port. The correct way to install the ribbon cable on the motherboard is to find pin 1. This is almost always marked on the motherboard, but you might need to consult the motherboard's manual. Next, look at the cable and notice it has a red or white line running down one side. This denotes pin 1 on the cable and should be plugged into the motherboard to align with its primary IDE port's pin 1.
Since we will be using the 80 GB drive by itself we will configure it as a standalone drive. That transalates to no jumper on a Western Digital Hard drive. Other manufactuers handle it differently, so be sure to check the documentation if you are using a different drive. Most drives will come with instructions as to the setup for master/slave configuration. The picture below shows the master/slave configuration for the WD drive.
Most cases use removable cages to hold the hard drives. Consult the case documentation and remove the hard drive cage. Install hard drive into the cage and mount it back into the case. Use TWO screws on each side of the drive. This will keep vibration and drive noise to a minimum. Be sure you hook up the four wire molar connection for power to the drive. The + red power lead should be right next to the red or white stripe that denotes pin 1 on the data cable when installed correctly on the hard drive. The molex plugs are keyed to install only one way. However, it is possible to them backwards with force. Be careful. You could ruin a drive by doing this.
Step 1-Buy Computer Parts | Step 2-Prepare the Computer Case | Step 3-Prepare the Motherboard | Step 4-Install CPU on the Motherboard | Step 5-Install Memory | Step 6-Install Motherboard | Step 7-Connect Switches and Lights | Step 8-Hook Up USB and Firewire | Step 9-Install Video Card | Step 10-First Boot | Step 11-Install Hard Drive | Step 12-Install the DVD Burner | Step 13-Install the PCI Cards | Step 14-Configure the BIOS | Step 15-Install Windows XP Return to the Top of Install Hard Drive.
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