how to install two sata hardrive

Hi everyone. I have an existing seagate SATA harddisk which is 160gig in size. Now I want to have a bigger disk size but I don't want to replace my harddisk. I want to add another 350gig SATA harddisk on my computer. Is that possible? Can anybody show me how? Please. Thank you!

 

If all you need is more storage space for movies, music and pictures the easiest answer is an external hard drive that connects to a USB 2.0 port.

You should be able to find a 1TB (3 times the storage of a 320GB) external desktop drive on sale for about $60-$75 at Newegg, Frys or Amazon. If you already have the 320GB internal drive you can buy an external USB case to mount it in for $20-$25.

 

Hi! My motherboard is an ECS 671T-M3
1GB Ram

 

Of course I have thought of that. I need more space because I run a lot of programs as well as games and I want them all in my desktop.

 

WRONG.

SATA doesn't use hard drive jumpers. You obviously don't know what you're talking about.

OP: From my research, it seems your motherboard has four SATA connections on it. All you will need to do is run a SATA cable from the motherboard to the other hard drive (to find the SATA connectors on the motherboard, simply trace the cable coming from the other hard drive to the motherboard), and a SATA power cable from your power supply to the hard drive to power the HDD (there should be an extra SATA power connector in there). Don't worry about the jumpers, etc. Once you install the hard drive by making those two connections, power up the computer and pay attention to the BIOS POST to see if it detects both. It should.

Once you are in Windows, go to Start, Run... (or alternatively, press Windows key + R), type "compmgmt.msc" without the quotes, and press enter. On the left side, under Storage, click Disk Management, and you should be able to see the newly installed hard drive in the list on the bottom (you may have to scroll). Determine the new drive by the size listed under the Disk #.

Once you've located the new drive, BE SURE to format it. You can format it by right clicking the box under the blue bar to the right of the Disk#, and select Format. Do NOT use Quick Format, and I highly recommend formatting NTFS.

Best of luck!

 

The only thing I'll add to mcsmc's good advice is that some boards may not automatically recognize which internal HDD is the boot drive (rare, but it can happen).

If the PC won't boot properly or gives you a no boot drive error message after installing the second HDD, you'll have to manually select the boot drive in BIOS setup.

Also, check your existing PSU to make sure it has an available SATA power connection plug. If it doesn't you can buy an adapter that converts a standard 4-prong connector to SATA power for about $3.

(Sorry if the external HDD comment came out wrong. Since you didn't state you wanted to run programs off the second HDD I assumed it was just for storage. My bad.)

 

Thanks guys! yeah my motherboard has 4 SATA connections to it. I'll do want you said guys, I hope it'll work. I'll keep it posted.