Swapping Hard Drives Between Computers

Instead of simply discarding the old hard drive, you can use it in your new computer and this will give you a lot of benefits. You will end up having more storage space in your new computer, you will have a safe place to back up your current files and software, and you will also not run the risk of having your old files and data fall in the wrong hands.

Swapping drives is not a difficult task, and you do not need to visit a computer repair shop to carry it out. Of course, if you have no idea what the inside of your machine looks like, and if you have absolutely no clue about how to connect a new hard drive, then you must visit an expert. But you can easily learn how to do it, and then you can carry out this task for yourself.

What are Hard Drives?
A hard drive is a component inside your computer that contains all your data. This is where all the information on your computer is stored. Every computer has a hard drive, and this is an absolutely essential component of desktop computers or laptop computers. It is very easy to swap them in desktop computers as they are easily accessible and they can hold more than one hard drive at a time. Laptops are a bit more complicated, and this is further compounded by the fact that laptop computers can only hold one hard drive at a time.

So the answer to whether one can change hard drives is a resounding yes, but the benefits of additional space and another source of back up can only be enjoyed in desktop computers. Swapping them is something that you should carry out only if you are absolutely certain that you will reap all the benefits of doing so. Hot swapping hard drives is possible, but only with external hard drives. It is not advisable to attempt this with your internal hard drives.

Swapping Hard Drives
You need to open up the old computer and locate the old hard drive. You need to keep two things in mind; firstly ensure that the power is switched off and all cables are disconnected, and secondly ensure that your old drive does not have computer viruses in it. If it does, then you need to make sure that your new computer has an official and up-to-date antivirus software active on it.

Carefully observe how the old hard drive is attached to the motherboard before you go ahead and remove it, because you will need to install it similarly in the new computer. The wires that connect the hard drive to the computer motherboard will be a ribbon data cable of sorts, and most of the old machines use a cable known as a PATA (Parallel ATA) cable. Newer machines make use of a SATA (Serial ATA) cable, and you must therefore attach your old hard drive to the secondary controller of the new motherboard. This will enable you to use the old hard drive. Refer to the manual of your motherboard for some changes that you may have to make in the BIOS settings.

Now you must mount the old hard drive into the new computer and then attach the data cable. You can locate the data cable by following the cable that is attached to your optical drive (CD drive or DVD drive) and then finding another socket for the hard drive. Also attach a spare power cable into the hard drive. Once you have attached this cable, your work is done.

To check if you have successfully carried out the swapping, switch on your new machine and go to 'My Computer' and see if your old hard drive has been listed. If you see it listed, you've successfully swapped drives. Note that the operating system on the old hard drive will not affect the machine, as the computer will always look at the new hard drive first when it is booting up.

You can either format the old hard drive or keep it as it is. Swapping hard drives is simple to carry out if you have some basic computer knowledge, and can grant you many advantages.