1. Installing a second internal hard drive.

2. Using a USB external hard drive.

3. Using a USB flash drive.

With the price of hard drives continuing to fall, and with the variety of the hard drives and backup devices that are avialable which have become easier and more convenient to use than ever, there is no excuse for not backing up your valuable data and software downloads. This can be one of the best investments and upgrades you can do for your PC, and your yourself! If you've ever experienced a computer or hard drive crash in the past and lost all those software programs and cool MP3 music files you've spend countless hours collecting and purchasing online, then you know what we mean about how frustrating it can be to spending countless hours trying to remember everything you had so you can find them all again, or trying to contact software companies to request re-downloads, hoping they will still be in business or download support for the software title you purchased will still even available, because some software versions or products become outdated or removed from lineups and are no longer supported, then you've lost it forever. Installing a second hard drive or using a USB drive just for storage purposes also does not require any special formatting or software installation, most storage drives are ready to use right out of the box.

If your going to use an older hard drive for storage purposes it's recommended that you reformat it after it's installed just to make sure it's clean. To reformat a second drive on most windows systems, simply go to "My Computer" and right click on the drive and select "Format"and follow the instructions. If this option isn't available on your system please research and read the "Help" section provided on your operating system. You'll only be able to use this method for reformatting secondary drives, you will not be able to use this this method to reformat your main drive which contains your active operating system, to do this is a more complex procedure which we will not be getting into or providing on our site. This information is for installing a second drive just for data backup and storage purposes, and is only provided as a courtesy and we do not offer any extended support should you run into any problems or don't understand the procedure. Please understand we are very busy and unable to provide support help or tutorials for such things as computer upgrades, general maintenance issues or problems unrelated to our software or technologies.

1. HOW TO INSTALL A SECOND INTERNAL HARD DRIVE ON YOUR COMPUTER
Also see using a USB external hard drive enclosure further down the page, this is the ultimate and easiest way to go!

NOTE: Be sure to disconnect the power before removing your PC's cover and touch part of the chassis to drain any static electricity from your body before touching the drive (static can damage the delicate electronics in the drive and computer).

The first thing to do (after removing the case covers) is to locate the drive bay where the hard drive will go (see Fig 4 below).



In our example in Fig 4 above we have a drive already in the bay so you can see more clearly where it should be situated, we don't have a floppy drive installed but if we did then it would be located in one of the free bays above the hard drive.

When adding a second drive try and leave a gap between the two drives for ventilation (although this might not always be possible).

Alternative installation instead of the Master/Slave configuration:

TheMaster/Slave configuration is no longer necessary with most modern hard drives and motherboards. So, if both your drives are ATA-100 or higher and are using an 80-conductor Ultra DMA cable (identifiable by the end plug being black and the middle plug being gray) do the following instead:

1) Set both drives' jumpers to Cable Select (CS).

2) Plug the furthest connector on the cable (black) into what was the Master drive, and plug the other header (gray) into your new drive.

Many of the newer drives seem to prefer this over the old Master/Slave configuration, and may slightly decrease access times for both drives.

Using Your New Drive:

When you reboot your machine the bios should automatically detect the new hard drive, then when your operating system (windows or other) has loaded, go to My Computer (or similar) and you should see your new drive there. The letter assigned to the drive will depend on your machine's configuration. Your new storage drive should now be ready to store and backup all your important data, media music files and software downloads etc. You can create folders and sub-folders to catergorize and organize your files just like you do on your main drive. You can also create a special tempory folder for all your downloads as well if you want or you can download straight to the folder of your choice, for exmaple if your downloading DesktopMates characters you can download it to a folder you create named "DesktopMates Characters".

2. Using a USB External Hard Drive Enclosure:

Alternative to the above internal hard drive solution.

If you can afford to spend an extra few bucks and your system is UBS 2.0 compatible, a USB external hard drive enclosure is the ultimate solution for storage & data backup. USB, or "Universal Serial Bus", is a peripheral bus connectivity standard that makes connecting devices to your computer faster, easier and virtually limitless. USB supports Plug-and-Play, and you can simply plug the USB device into your computer without shutting down and without having to open your computer, and it's portable!

USB external hard drive enclosures (without a hard drive included) average between $30 - $60 depending on the brand name and features.

Another great feature about using an USB drive is you can simply turn it off or unplug it when it's not being used which will save on the life of the drive as well as preventing it from being infected, although it's far less likely to get infected becuase you don't install your OS system onto it where most viruses and worms reside in and ussualy only look for other system files to infect.

Try the link below for sample prices and more info about USB external hard drive enclosures.

Also check your local Walmart, Staples or Office Max stores.

There's often some pretty good deals on Ebay as well.

Ebay - 3.5 USB drive Enclosures for Desktops (uses standard size hard drives used in most desktops)

Ebay - 2.5 USB drive Enclosures for Desktops (uses smaller size hard drives commonly used in most laptops, also can be used to plug into desktops as well).

3. USB Flash Drive:

USB flash drives are compact and easy-to-use devices that are similar in use to an external USB hard drive enclosure. USB flash drives aren't the solution if your wanting to backup an entire system drive, but they are ideal for backing up important files, software programs or downloaded music etc. USB flash drives are extremely compact and can slip into your pocket providing the ultimate portable storage. USB Flash Drives can usually be purchased on E-bay for under $30 for a 512 MB drive, and often under $50 for a one or two GB drive. Ebay - USB Flash Drives