Hard drive replacement

I recently purchased a Western Digital 160Gb Caviar SE and I am awaiting delivery. I am pretty good about replacing parts but want to make sure I do this right. I would like answers to the following questions. 1. What should I do prior to install? 2. What files or drive should be backed up if any? Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

Having just replaced a HD that crashed, I would suggest to backup anything you want to keep...Pictures, music, videos, and programs that you don't have the software for. have fun w/the new HD. I have been putting all kinds of stuff on mine that I didn't think I had room for before.

 

What I would suggest would be to connect the new HDD to your existing rig, create an extended partition on it and copy all your data.

Good Luck

 

How is this done? After this is completed, Can I simply swap them out and have all my data from my system prior to it? Would like to do it as quick and painless as possible. Thanks All for the info.