How Do I Replace a Hard Drive?

You'll need to replace the hard drive in your computer for one of two reasons: either your current drive has experienced a hardware failure and needs replaced, or you want to upgrade your primary hard drive for increased speed or capacity.

Replacing a hard drive is a pretty easy task that anyone can complete with a little help. In other words, don't worry—you can do this!

How Do I Replace a Hard Drive?

To replace a hard drive, you'll need to back up any data you want to keep, uninstall the old hard drive, install the new hard drive, and then restore the backed up data.

Here's a bit more on the three required steps:

1. Backing up the data you want to keep is the most important step in this process! The hard drive isn't the valuable thing—it's the priceless files you've created and collected over the years.

   Creating a backup could mean something as simple as copying files you want over to a large flash drive or other storage you're not using. Better yet, if you're not backing up regularly already, use this as an opportunity to start with a cloud backup service, so you never even run the chance of losing a file again.

   5 Ways to Back up Your Data and Keep It Safe

2. Uninstalling the existing hard drive is easy. Make sure your computer is turned off and then disconnect the hard drive and physically remove it.

   The details here depend on the type of computer you have, but in general, this means removing data and power cables or sliding the hard drive out from the bay that it's installed into.

3. Installing the new hard drive is as simple as reversing the steps you took to uninstall the one you're replacing! Secure the drive where the old one was before, and then reconnect the same power and data cables.

4. Once your computer is back on, it's time to format the hard drive, so it's ready to store files. Once that's done, copy the data you backed up to the new drive, and you're set!

Need a Walkthrough?

Below are links to illustrated guides that will walk you through the hard drive replacement process. The specific steps necessary to replace a hard drive differ depending on the type of hard drive you're replacing:

• How to Replace a SATA Hard Drive
• How to Replace a PATA Hard Drive
• How to Replace a Laptop or Tablet Hard Drive

A Clean Windows Install Is Usually Best

A fresh installation of Windows will avoid any problems of data corruption or other software related issues that might have been present on your original hard drive. Yes, there are tools and programs that can "migrate" or "move" your OS and data from one drive to another, but the clean install and manual data restore method is usually the safer bet.

You can even think of the migration process to a new hard drive as a great opportunity to start fresh with a new operating system like Windows 11, something that you might have been putting off because you didn't want to erase and restore all your data.

Considerations Before You Replace Your Hard Drive

If your hard drive is failing or has already failed, or you need more space in your primary hard drive, then replacing it makes sense. However, for hard drives that are simply running out of space, upgrading to a newer one might be an overkill.

Take Out the Garbage

Hard drives that are running low on available storage space can usually be cleaned up to make room for anything else you want to put on them. If Windows reports low disk space, use a free disk space analyzer tool to see where, exactly, all the biggest files are located and delete or move whatever makes sense.

Often, you can do something as simple as delete temporary files that programs or Windows creates but doesn't discard when done with them. Even emptying the Recycle Bin can, in some cases, free up gigabytes of data in just a few seconds.

Add a Drive

If you're looking to simply add hard drive capacity to your computer, or you need a place to store the big files you don't need on your primary drive, consider using an external hard drive or installing a second hard drive, assuming you have a desktop and there's physically room for it.

Another option is to offload large and rarely used files to a cloud storage service. Using one is similar to using a second hard drive, but it's remote (stored in the cloud) and therefore arguably safer, at least from local damage.

Repair the Drive

Replacing a failing hard drive is important, but it's possible in some cases to repair errors on the drive to avoid a replacement. There are lots of free hard drive testing programs, so you don't need to pay to do this.