Please help me install my new Hard Drive! :)

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shortbushero

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Aug 25, 2012
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Background Info: I built my own PC, but my HDD was dead on arrival so i used my old crappy hard disk. It's really slow now so I bought a new WesternDigital 1TB HDD from new egg. Today I put it into the computer and everything went fine.

My Issue: This is my first time installing a second hard drive, so I don't know how to get it functional. Both my BIOS and Windows "device manager" recognize it's there, but when I open up my library and go to 'computer', I only see my C: drive (crappy old one).

Question One: How can I get my new Hard Drive operational?

Question Two: How can I transfer ALL of my files (including windows and other applications) to my new, faster hard disk. I don't have my windows installation disk, so i can't just start from scratch, but I'm almost certain that there's a way to do this.

Please help me resolve this issue. You've never let me down before, Tom.
-Sam

Edit: Okay so i went into computer management and I cliked on my unallocated new drive and clicked new simple volume or w/e. I went through a setup wizard and assigned letter A to it and formatted it. I didn't really know what to choose through all of these options, but i feel like I did it right haha. Thank you so much man. :D

BTW, once I transfer my files and apps to my new drive, can i just unplug the old one or what?
 
Solution
Jaxem
1.type "computer" into whatever os start bar you have and you should find "computer management" where you'll click "disk management" in the left pane, then right click on your new disk and click something like "initialize disk" (i don't remember exactly what it says). Then you'll be able to format and use it.

2.You should be able to use a disk cloning utility like acronis or clonezilla to make an exact copy from one disk to the other that will work just fine.
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Jaxem

Jaxem

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Jul 22, 2013
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1.type "computer" into whatever os start bar you have and you should find "computer management" where you'll click "disk management" in the left pane, then right click on your new disk and click something like "initialize disk" (i don't remember exactly what it says). Then you'll be able to format and use it.

2.You should be able to use a disk cloning utility like acronis or clonezilla to make an exact copy from one disk to the other that will work just fine.
 
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Solution
Jaxem

Jaxem

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Jul 22, 2013
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You did it right, the defaults in the wizard don't need to be changed at all. If you clone the drive over, you'll just turn off the PC, unplug the old one, and let the new one take over, you'll have to clean the old one before you can use it in that PC again as it will have the same signature as the other drive (which windows doesn't like).
 
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Jaxem

Jaxem

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Jul 22, 2013
2,170
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12,960


You'll have two identical hard drives when you're done. If you're doing the clone in windows, you'll shut down when done, then disconnect the old drive for boot (you may have to clean it with another machine because of the signature problem). If you do it with something like clonezilla live (my preference) you'll exit clonezilla, shutdown, disconnect, remove clonezilla media and boot again.
 
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