Q&A for How to Change a Computer Hard Drive Disk

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Can I remove my hard drive and run it in an external case?

Community Answer

You can, but the desktop that you remove the hard drive from will no longer work. The now external drive will run as a storage device, like a flash drive.

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Question

How do I install a SATA disk?

Community Answer

Install it in your PC's chassis, connect the proper power cable from the PSU and connect it to the motherboard with a SATA cable, and you're done.

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Question

Can a hard disk be repaired?

Community Answer

Not usually, although there are ways to at least partially recover the data. Hard disks are pretty inexpensive and aren't worth trying to repair, especially if the disk surface has been damaged.

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Question

Can I take the hard drive from one computer and use it in a different computer?

Community Answer

Yes. As long as the hardware is compatible, it should work in any computer.

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Question

Is every website visited stored on the hard drive?

Community Answer

Websites you visit leave a bookmark or some form of indicator (a cookie) on your computer's hard drive, unless you open a private browser window or use a search engine like DuckDuckGo that doesn't track you.

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Do external hard drives backup automatically or just at scheduled intervals?

Community Answer

External drives come with software which you select auto backups of whatever files you want and whenever you want.

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Question

How do I figure out which hard drive is failing when I have multiple ones?

Community Answer

Look on your motherboard for the sata port it is in. That should give you a good idea of which drive is failing when you look on the bios menu.

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Question

If an external HDD shows an unknown file system and is not seen in disk management as a HDD (but as a removable drive), is the HDD bad?

Community Answer

You answered your own question: it's an external hard drive, which by definition is removable. You may need to format the file system to NTFS or FAT32 though.

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How do I recover my computer's hard drive?

Community Answer

I recommend you take it in to an electronics store and let professionals do it for you.

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Question

Can I use a USB as a startup disk for the operating system after installing a new hard drive?

Community Answer

Yes. You'll need to have an ISO of the OS that you want burned to a USB stick, and you'll need to make the USB drive bootable using software such as Rufus. Note that this will reformat and destroy and data on the USB drive.

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What do I do if I replaced my SATA drive and my computer is not showing the new drive?

Community Answer

Reinstall the proper operating system. Windows 7,8,10 mac os or linux. Always make sure that your SATA drive is properly seated when installing.

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How do I replace my startup disc and system image for my original hard drive?

Community Answer

You will first have to boot into some sort of recovery/installation medium. Once that is done, you must configure your Basic In/Out System (BIOS) to boot from your hard drive. Most instructions would be given by the installation medium. If you install windows 10, you can get the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool from Microsoft's website.

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How do I switch hard drives from my broken computer to my new computer?

Community Answer

You will have to remove the hard drive (unless it's broken) from its case, and verify that you can insert the cables into the new computer.

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Question

Can My HP dv6 hard drive be replaced by a Seagate Momentus?

Community Answer

As long as the drive fits and has the correct SATA specifications then yes, it will.

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Question

My 2 hard drives are raided together. Can I un-raid them to have 2 hard drives?

Community Answer

Yes you can, first save all data you want, then with OS running, go to disk proprieties and format one at a time to ntfs.

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