Preparing Your Hard Drives

Preparing Your Hard Drives

We used only serial ATA drives in our system, but if you’re using old parallel IDE drives, you’ll need to set your drives to the proper Master/Slave setting before you mount the drive in the case. Skip ahead to step 17 if you need to configure your parallel IDE hard drives we’ll be waiting back here with the Serial ATA users.

This is another step that will vary on a case by case basis you might need to mount your hard drives in a drive cage or rack before you install them in your PC. Make sure your drive is pointing in the right direction!

Not everyone’s case will have a drive cage or caddy for your hard drive. Whether you have a drive cage or not, this step is the same. Line up your drive with the holes, making sure that it’s oriented the right way it will be difficult to connect cables if your drive points the wrong way!

When you screw the drive into the case or drive cage, make sure you use the right thread of screws, and be careful not to over tighten. Note that not all cases make you mount the drives by their bottom screws. With most, you screw the drives directly into the side mounting holes.

In some cases, you’ll screw the drive directly into the chassis. Either way, it’s a pretty simple task. Remember, to make sure that your screw is lined up with the hole properly, unscrew it for a turn before you begin screwing it. That will make sure that the threads all line up, and prevent you from striping the holes in your hardware.

When you’re screwing any component into your PC, you should screw in opposite corners first. That makes it easier to keep the holes lined up and get the component evenly screwed down.

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