Installing an additional hard drive

Hi I'm Vee!

Alright, after briefly browsing around, it's looking like I'm going to invest in one of the following hard drives:

Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB

or

HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 2TB

My issue is that I already have a hard drive for this computer, and I know basically nothing about installing a second one. I do know that my case has the capacity for another one, but I'm not sure if there will be compatibility issues or what to do in terms of partitions, etc. Honestly I don't even really know where to start!

I guess this is kind of an open-ended question, but any help or advice would be appreciated!

Motherboard: ASRock M3A780GXH/128M
Processor: 2.90 gigahertz AMD Athlon II X2 245

Donkey Kong

Make sure you have the cables to plug it in and screws/trays or whatever your computer uses to hold the drive in place. That's pretty much it. Place the drive in the computer. Follow these instructions to get it formatted: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Create-and-format-a-hard-disk-partition

You don't have to worry about anything special since it's a plain old second drive. It will show up as a separate thing with its own letter in windows explorer. Pick NTFS if it gives you formatting choices.

minirhyder

Do you have an extra SATA cable? You will need one.

The SATA connectors on your mobo are the red thing in the bottom left corner in this image:


Not much will happen after the installation of the HD. You will boot to windows from where you will be able to make partitions with device manager.
If you have issues check out this thread: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/22749026#Comment_22749026

corky842

Those are "bare drives" which means they don't come with any extra things like the cable or screws (like everyone else in the thread has said). Looks like these are the cheapest screws: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817998092
And pretty much any SATA cable will work.

minirhyder

Check out monoprice.com for cables. They are dirt cheap, and haven't given me any issues.