If you've experienced a hard drive failure or you're looking to just increase the capacity or storage space of your hard drive, first thing you want to do, prior to getting your system to this state here, is, of course, go to support.dell.com. You can put in your Service Tag. There's a link there where you can open a manual.
The first step in there, there's some safety warnings you need to adhere to which basically explains to go in and unplug every external connector that's connected to your system. Now, for the purposes of this display, the system is setting up on its side. You would normally have it laying down flat.
You have your buttons on either end at that point where you would push in, compress. It will allow the system to scissor open as you see here. When you look at your system, you have your system opened up here, you're going to notice a lot of components, a lot of cables, a lot of colors.
And Dell engineers have done a fantastic job in how they lay these systems out. And just before we get to the hard drive here, I want to point out a couple of items, just kind of familiarize yourself with your system. You have your video card and your control slots right here for plugging in expansion cards such as if you're going to connect a printer or change out your video card and an additional network interface card.
Things of that manner. A dialup modem. Those devices would be connecting in here. Now, you also have your memory slots right here. Your processor is underneath this cooling unit right here. Of course your power supply. And your wiring harness. Now, in looking at the optical drive and the coloring, you'll notice the difference in the colored tag here and then also at the other end of the cable and it's the same way for your hard drives as well. In this case here the cable I just unplugged is for your hard drive.
That's your IDE or EIDE hard drive. At that same website support.dell.com in that manual it will tell you if you have a IDE hard drive or SATA hard drive. When you are changing your hard drive cable, say it got pinched or it has been determined that the cable was the issue and not the drive, you simply pull on this tab, look at the guides that you have here on your system, pull those through there gently.
Try not to tear those, because when you put that cable back through there, this keeps everything in line and uniform where it needs to be. Again, when you close your system, you don't want your cable to be overlapping the edge of the system. You've got a bigger problem. And, again, there's another clip under here that holds the cable in place.
You'll notice right here, just gently pull on the cable and it comes right out, no trouble at all. Now, in setting this cable aside here, you can clearly see your hard drive. Your hard drive here has one of these power connectors we talked about here already plugged in. Again, firmly grab ahold of the power connector.
You may have to wiggle it a little bit but it will come out. If you notice it's also keyed. What I mean by that is the shape of the actual plug itself. It's squared off on two of the edges and on the other side it's rounded off. It's all going to fit into this drive one way. It's the same thing with your cable.
There's a notch cut out right here. Some drives also have a pin missing. If you look at the end of your cable, you will see the blocked in area for the pin that's missing and you'll also see the little guide pin or the guide key, if you would. Now, when pulling your hard drive out of here, again, you're not going to need any screwdrivers or wrench or hammer or anything else. All you need to do is look at these guide rails right here.
These plastic rails right here you just pull these two together. Go ahead and grab ahold of it and your hard drive slides out really easily. When you get your hard drive and you have your replacement, this is where you will need a screwdriver at this point because you want these guide rails put back in place so that if you ever have to pull this out again it makes it easier.
A standard Phillips head screwdriver right here, pull these out, these will come off. Put it in the same way you have on the existing drive. It's always a good idea to do one side at a time, take it off this side and put on the new new drive and do the other side. Don't get yourselves turned around.
Of course, when it comes time to put it back in it will just rest right in this cradle right here and then gently push it back in until it clicks. Reconnect your power cable, just like so. And then you're going to look at your cable where you have a double connector here at the end, that's always going to connect to the actual drive. If you notice the difference in color here.
This one's black or gray. And then this end is blue. You're going to connect your blue end to your motherboard, and the drive that's, the connector that's on the far end will actually physically connect to the hard drive. You're going to connect your cable, connect it to your hard drive first. Run your cable back through.
The guides that are built in the system again to keep your cable from getting pinched or damaged. Run this back through this guide here. Pull it through. Just plug in like so. Again, once over, make sure everything's in line, make sure everything's connected, that there's nothing that's fallen in the way, and close your system, reconnect your cables, power your system on, and you should be ready to install your operating system or what have you at that point.
