Installing New Hard Drive

[JohnK123]

I am planning on replacing my existing hard drive on a dell optiplex 755 desktop with a new one. There is only one hard drive bay so I am wondering how i can do this. If i replace them will I have no OS. I don't really mind losing any files but I don't know how to do this without not having an OS.
Thanks

 

[ss202sl]

You will have to put an OS on the new drive. If you buy a retail HDD, then you should get some software to clone the drive - you'll have to open the case, and connect both drives up at the same time to do this . It's not too hard, and there should be instructions included.

 

[JohnK123]

would a wiped drive I own work as in do I have to have the software to clone or can i use a 'used' drive,

 

[ss202sl]

You can use any drive. The trick is getting the data moved over. There are free imaging software like clonezilla. I've not used any of the free ones, so I can't really say a lot about them.

The other option is backing up your data, and just reloading the OS onto the new hard drive and then restore your data.

 

[jsmithepa]

There is only one hard drive bay

Wow-wow-wow-wow-wow. Don't need no drive bay to do this once-off stuff, as long as you got another SATA port and a long enough cable to reach it, pop the drive up on top of a book, on top of the open case, or on the side if tower as long as it's fairly steady and is sitting on something non-conductive. Clone Away.