Drive Compatibility

When you want to install a new drive, you must first check it’s compatibility with your system. First, start by locating the interface on the drive you are looking to purchase. It should be on the case but if it isn't here is what they look like:

Given that the interfaces are so different the cables are also different, here's a side by side view.

And here is what the power connections for each drive look like:

This is an adapter so it is the Male side of the Molex cable that goes into the IDE drive, where as this is the female side pictured

Now there are a few ways to check the motherboard for compatibility. The simplest one is to open the case and take a look.

Now make sure the drive didn't mess up your boot order. Installing a new hard drive either as a replacement or as an addition can result in it being 
assigned a lower priority than the CD-Rom or an existing drive, or assign a lower priority to the existing drive and cause the machine to not boot properly


Not all Bios screens look like this and some of the options don't show up in some Bios.
Other Bios screens may look different but the underlying concept is the same.


The Hard Drive Boot Priority Screen allows you to select which drive gets booted from if you have multiple drives.
If you have the drives set wrong you could get an error screen that looks similar to this:
Now format the drives and set them up how you want them.
You may have to Initialize the drive first, do so by right clicking its name and selecting Initialize.
Once initialized it will look as it does here, you can then right click and format it how you want if you installed another drive alongside an existing one.
If you installed a single new drive the OS disk will walk you through formatting or the Factory Restore disk will do it for you.
Your new hard drive should be setup and working properly. Our next lesson will teach you about power supplies and how to avoid incompatibility problems with yours when installing new hardware.