Im new to these pc things and i just want to switch hard drives and dump some files into it. Is there an easy guide for me to do this? I just need to take out my current hd and put in a new one.
Norton Ghost 2003 is what I use, you can connect in your other HD and do a 'clone' directly to the other.
Very simple to use and does it quite quickly aswell.
There is probably other software available, but all I have used is Norton Ghost because I find it quite 'bullet proof'.
If you are just transferring files and not a System disc (Operating system etc), then you can just connect it to a spare IDE connection (ribbon cable) and format it with the same File system (FAT or NTFS) and use windows explorer and 'drag n drop'
As a standard you should have 2 IDE connectors on the motherboard.
Primary (IDE1) and Secondary (IDE2) - usually.
Each connector requires a ribbon cable 40 way IDE, however the 80 way IDE ribbons now provide better performance.
Obtain a ribbon cable that has 3 connectors on the cable (for 2 devices)
Each IDE connector can support 2 IDE devices such as HD's and other optical devices.
What you will need to do is configure the HD first.
On the back of them is a little 'jumper' and will either be on master, slave or cable select.
Your main HD will be Primary master, so any other device you connect to the same cable will NEED to be configured as the slave, just by moving the jumper across.
