- 1). Connect the hard drives to your computer. There are two kinds of hard drives: SATA (Serial ATA) and PATA (Parallel ATA, also known as IDE).
- 2). SATA drives are easy to hook up. Connect the data cable (small and wafer-like) and the power cord. Connect the data cable to the SATA ports on the motherboard. Look through your motherboard's manual to find them and identify which one is the primary port. Connect the drive you want to have the operating system on into the primary slot.
- 3). With PATA drives, you need to set the jumpers before installing them. Jumpers are little plastic bridges that go on two short rows of metal pins on the back of the drive and regulate the order in which they are used. A diagram showing the positions on should be on top of the drive, or you can look it up online. Set the hard drive with your operating system to "master" and the other to "slave." Connect the master drive to the primary IDE connector on the motherboard (consult the manual to find it) and the slave to the secondary. You can also connect them both on the same IDE cable, but make sure the master drive is first in sequence and you use the primary connector.
- 4). Go into BIOS by following the instructions that appear when you first turn your computer on. A line of text near the bottom of the screen should tell you how to get into setup. In the boot list, select the primary or master drive as the one to boot off first.
- 5). To operate both drives, they need to be using file systems that are compatible with your operating system. File systems govern how the drive stores data. Windows uses NTFS, FAT16 and FAT32; Mac uses HFS; and Linux uses a variety of systems depending on which version you are using.
- 6). If you can use the second drive, then don't worry about formatting it. If it doesn't work, use a formatting program, like fdisk, to reformat it into a file system that is compatible with your operating system.
- 7). You can also load a different operating system onto the second hard drive. You can do this the same way you would normally install an operating system. Just make sure to select the second drive in the installation process.
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