How To Replace a Faulty Hard Drive

!±8± How To Replace a Faulty Hard Drive

If you have ever owned your own computer then at some point you have had to deal with hardware that dies at some point. Often many people do not know what is even wrong, but just their computer quit working and will not start. Oddly enough, when you actually try to start the computer it beeps a few times and suddenly displays a message... "OS Not Found".

Luckily for us though, its actually quite simple to replace a broken hard drive. Most of the time the only tool you even need is a phillips screw driver. Following these steps will allow you to replace that hard drive in no time flat! So here they are...

Disconnect the power cable from the back of the computer. Once you have the power disconnected, unplug all the other cables and wires from the computer.Place the computer tower on a table or stand to allow easier access to the computer.Locate the two screws holding the cover on the side of the computer. Some computers, like Dell, have a handle or button you press that will release the side of the computer for you without having to remove any screws.Remove the cover and place off to the side, out of the way.Unless you ordered more than one hard drive for your computer, most computers only come with one hard drive. Most of the time they are located in the spot directly under your computer's CD-ROM or DVD player. Older computers use IDE's drives and newer computers use SATA drives. IDE is easy to spot as it has a fairly wide cable attaching the hard drive to the mother board. SATA on the other hand, uses a lot smaller cable. They both also have some form of power cable attached to them. This is usually a small, white plastic jack for IDE, and an even smaller black jack for SATA. Once you know what kind you have you simply need to go buy a new hard drive thats the same as the old drive.At this point you can disconnect the old hard drive. Do not disconnect the cables yet.Install the new hard drive to the slot and screw it back down properly. Once you have the new hard drive in place, disconnect the first cable from the old hard drive.Attach this cable to the new hard drive.Disconnect the last cable and attach it to the new hard drive.With both cables connected, you should be able to replace the cover and screws to reseal your computer case.Re-attach each cable to the back of your computer, connecting the power cable back up last.Install a fresh copy of Windows on your computer and you should be good as new. Most computers come with some kind of disk that will reinstall Windows for you. Simply turn on your computer, insert the disk as soon as you can, and it should display a message asking you if you would like to boot from the CD. The Windows installation is fairly simple after that.

Once you've replaced a hard drive, replacing other things like a vidoe card, or modem are a piece of cake. Most everything else simply plugs into some kind of slot making most hardware work a breeze.