How to Install a New Hard Drive

You've owned your notebook for a couple years, and now you're running out of space to store all of your music, photos, video, documents, and other files. You could invest in an external hard drive, but then you run into the problem of decreased portability. Instead, why not increase the size of your internal hard drive and take everything with you?

 

We doubled the storage capacity of a Gateway NX570X by swapping the 80GB hard drive with a 160GB model from Seagate ($138; www.seagate.com). Be sure to consult your notebook's manual to find out whether the hard drive uses an ATA or SATA interface, or if you don't have the manual on hand, check the hard drive connection in Vista's or XP's Device Manager.
 
You'll also want to back up important files to an external drive or disc (so you can transfer them to the new hard drive after it's installed). You'll also need a copy of your operating system on hand to reinstall on your system. Ready to perform some light surgery? Let's get started.