Installing New hard drive

[lapko33]

Hi,

This is the first time I ever tried working on computer at all so any help would be great.

I have a Dell inspirion 660. I use it only to surf the web, Microsoft office and to store digital pictures.

My warranty expired December 31, 2014. Two weeks into January my computer kept saying hard drive is failing (Nothing seemed different though. Its not slower or locking up). I went to dell's site and ran their test. It said that it was failing that I needed to replace my hard drive. Since it was out of warranty by 2 weeks dell said I needed to buy a new drive and that they give me 10 off. So I did.

Fast forward to today. My new hard drive is in. I read that the best thing to do is to clone my old hard drive onto new one since old one is still working. So I downloaded the software to run it. So I took the box apart and put in the new hard drive. When doing so I noticed that it needed two plugs. I found and extra power plug? I believe coming from the old hard drive. There was no second extra plug which I believe is the Serial ATA cable. When looking on line I found one being sold on ebay that is the exact same as the old hard drive is using http:// My questions do I have to use this one or can I buy a cheaper one on another site? Are they all the same?


Second thing. I ran the dell test again today and now it says that my hard drive is fine. No errors are found. Is this normal? If I keep both hard drives in my computer will it act like one hard drive with more space or will there be two different hard drives?

 

[USAFRet]

A SATA drive has two connections. Data and power.

What you've linked to on ebay is a standard SATA data cable. But about $10 more than it should cost.
5 pack - $8.55
http://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-18-Inch-Locking-90-Degree-108783/dp/B00IOS6EAU

2 pack - $2.00
http://www.amazon.com/CNE11445-SATA-Data-Cable-2pk/dp/B001O4EPHA

2 pack, without being an Amazon add on item - $5
http://www.amazon.com/Aleratec-SATA-Data-Cable-2pk/dp/B004Q7K3XM

For your drives - You can clone from the old to the new if you wish
Ad having the two drives in there will be two different drive letters. C and probably D. Very common configuration.

 

[Alabalcho]

For data cable - you can buy it from anywhere, it's called "SATA data cable". Check how the cable goes inside the case, you might need 90-degrees cable at one or both ends.

When clonning the old hard drive - make absolutely sure you're clonning old -> new, and not the other way around. Since both drives are probably of same make and capacity, you have to rely on other factors (some clonning applications display drive' serial number).

Once you clone the drive, move the data cable from old drive to the new one, disconnect the old one, and power-up your computer. Make sure it works as intended. After that, you can re-connect the old drive, reformat (erase) it, and use it as another drive, or keep it disconnected for disaster backup.

 

[lapko33]

Thank you for your help. I will order the 2 pack from amazon.