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Author Topic: Hard Drive full  (Read 2885 times)

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citzel

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Hard Drive full
« on: October 19, 2007, 01:23:42 PM »
I need to add another hard drive.  Wasn't thinking 3 years ago and only ordered a 80 gb hard drive.  I have a Dell Dimension 8300 with a pentium 4 processor.  1g of RAM.  I believe it is an ATA because of the grey ribbon connection.  I'm not sure what kind of hard drive to purchase.  I know it should be ATA but can I use an ultra ATA or any ATA hard drive.  I want to have my current hard drive as the master and boot from that and move my files to the new drive.  I also will be upgrading my RAM to 2 gb.  I'm really confused with all the jargen ???.  I believe I can install it without any problems but I don't know the specs. of what kind I should buy.  I also have and external hard drive but use that only for strorage of pics and such.  Any help would be greatly appreceiated.  Thank you in advance.  ;D

patio

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Re: Hard Drive full
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2007, 03:42:06 PM »
Yes this is a relatively simple process...
You can choose either another ultra ATA drive or a SATA drive and the procedure will be the same.
When you install the new HDD it should come with a manuf. utility CD.
If it doesn't no worry the utilities are available at their website for free.
Basically you install the new drive...then boot to the CD you created or that shipped with the new drive.
In the utility program you prepare the new drive for using and when done select the "clone" utility...and run it.
This will copy your existing HDD over to the new drive exactly as it is.
You then power down...remove your original drive temporarily and hook up the new drive as master.
When you boot up voila; all your data the OS and programs are there...except on a bigger drive.
Then it's just a matter of testing to make sure everything runs as it should...if so you hook up the old drive , format it and use it for storage.
This is the most reliable painless way to add an additional HDD.
Any questions feel free to post back.
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