- 1). Unscrew the screws holding your computer tower's side panel in place using a Phillips screwdriver and then remove the computer's side panel.
- 2). Connect the new SATA hard drive to your old IDE hard drive using an IDE to ATA cable. These cables are available online or at your local computer hardware store.
- 3). Switch the SATA hard drive's "Master/Servant" switch to "servant" for now.
- 4). Restart your computer and as soon as the Windows logo appears, press the "F1" key on your computer keyboard. This will take you to the BIOS Setup Utility screen.
- 5). Press the "up" or "down" arrows on your computer keyboard and then press the "Enter" button while the SATA hard drive is selected.
- 6). Check that under the description of the hard drive it says "SATA." If it doesn't, press the "+/=" or "_/-" key to change it to SATA.
- 7). Press the "F10" key to save and exit the BIOS Setup Utility screen and boot your computer.
- 8). Go online and find a program that allows you to "clone" a hard drive. There are some of these programs available for free. Examples of these free hard drive cloning programs include Clonezilla, HDClone and PC Backup & Recovery by Acronis (see References).
- 9). Install the software into your computer once it's been downloaded and then run the software by double-clicking on the program's icon.
- 10
Click the "Disk Clone" option in the hard drive cloning program and then wait for the software to clone the device. - 11
Change the hard drives around to the set up you prefer. If you are going to replace the IDE with the SATA drive, then remove the IDE drive, install the SATA drive and switch the SATA hard drive's "Master/Slave" switch back to "Master." If you are going to add the SATA to the computer, then just install the SATA hard drive. If you are going to use the SATA hard drive on a different computer, then just remove the SATA hard drive. - 12
Replace the computer's side panel and then screw it back into place with the screws.
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