Hello. I recently purchased a custom built gaming desktop. It comes with an SSD primary with the Windows 11 OS on it and a secondary HDD which is 2 TB. I haven't really even used it yet. I was hoping that I would be able to remove the secondary and replace it with a new one that'll have more space, to store files or install games. For example, upgrading from the 2 TB to a 16 TB HDD. Are there any specific steps I should follow or is it a simple swap? Would I need to uninstall 2 TB one? If so, how would I go about that? I do plan on using the 2 TB for a different PC. Thank you.
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Question Replacing a Secondary HDD with a Newer/Bigger HDD
- Thread starter Bloopsy
- Start date
Solution
- Mar 21, 2015
- 12,335
- 1,853
- 80,390
It is essentially plug-and-play.
Steps would be following:
1. Power down the PC.
2. Remove the power cable behind PC.
3. Open up the PC and locate SATA power connector. Connect it to the new HDD. Also, have one spare SATA data cable, where one end plugs into the HDD and 2nd end goes to the MoBo SATA port.
4. Once the HDD is connected (both the SATA data and power cables), close the PC side panel.
5. Plug the power cable back to PSU and power on the PC.
The new HDD appears in Disk Management. It shows up as unallocated drive. You need to allocate/format it and also assign drive letter to it. Once you do that, new HDD shows up under "This PC", alongside your OS and old HDD.
Then, you can copy/paste the data over from 2TB HDD to 16TB HDD.
Once data transfer is complete and you're happy;
1. Power down the PC.
2. Remove power cable from PSU.
3. Open up the PC.
4. Remove the old 2TB HDD from the system, by unplugging the SATA data and power cables. You can also remove SATA data cable from MoBo and take that cable out.
5. Put the side panel back.
6. Plug the power cable back to PSU and power on your PC.
This way, new drive is installed, data is transferred over and you have your old 2TB HDD at hand, to use in another PC.
Note: 2TB HDD still contains the data it had. Once you have it plugged behind another PC, you can format the HDD to get it empty again. But don't unallocate the partition, else-ways, you have to reallocate the partition. Not hard to do, but requires few more unnecessary steps.
Steps would be following:
1. Power down the PC.
2. Remove the power cable behind PC.
3. Open up the PC and locate SATA power connector. Connect it to the new HDD. Also, have one spare SATA data cable, where one end plugs into the HDD and 2nd end goes to the MoBo SATA port.
4. Once the HDD is connected (both the SATA data and power cables), close the PC side panel.
5. Plug the power cable back to PSU and power on the PC.
The new HDD appears in Disk Management. It shows up as unallocated drive. You need to allocate/format it and also assign drive letter to it. Once you do that, new HDD shows up under "This PC", alongside your OS and old HDD.
Then, you can copy/paste the data over from 2TB HDD to 16TB HDD.
Once data transfer is complete and you're happy;
1. Power down the PC.
2. Remove power cable from PSU.
3. Open up the PC.
4. Remove the old 2TB HDD from the system, by unplugging the SATA data and power cables. You can also remove SATA data cable from MoBo and take that cable out.
5. Put the side panel back.
6. Plug the power cable back to PSU and power on your PC.
This way, new drive is installed, data is transferred over and you have your old 2TB HDD at hand, to use in another PC.
Note: 2TB HDD still contains the data it had. Once you have it plugged behind another PC, you can format the HDD to get it empty again. But don't unallocate the partition, else-ways, you have to reallocate the partition. Not hard to do, but requires few more unnecessary steps.
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