SATA hard drives are the most common type of hard drive in use today, but they are also the most unreliable. With a few easy steps, you can configure your SATA hard drive to work with your computer.
The how to connect sata hard drive to motherboard is a guide that will show you how to install and configure a SATA Hard Drive.
We’ll take you through the process of configuring a new hard drive in Windows in this tutorial. We’ll approach this from the standpoint of adding another (second, third, or even fourth) hard drive. This implies your computer already has a primary hard drive with Windows installed on it, and you’re just installing another one.
Please return to our first tutorial in this series, How To Install a SATA Hard Drive, if you have not yet physically installed and connected in the new drive.
Warning: Some of the instructions in this tutorial may wipe the data on your existing hard disk. Please make sure you don’t miss any of the steps below. Carefully complete them in the correct sequence.
We’ll start up exactly where we left off in the last tutorial, with you having just inserted your new hard drive and rebuilt your computer casing. Once you’ve reassembled everything, connect it to electricity and we’re ready to go.
The screenshots in this article were captured on the Windows 8 platform, although many Windows versions (XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10) would look quite similar.
Step 1: Turn on your computer and make a backup of your data.
Activate your PC.
It is recommended that you keep a backup of your data on any existing hard disks. In case anything goes wrong, it’s always a good idea to do this (unlikely, but still possible). If you haven’t already taken one, this is an excellent opportunity to do so before moving on to the next stage.
Step 2: Launch the Disk Management Utility.
Open the “Disk Management” program in Windows.
There are many ways to locate and launch “Disk Management,” and the shortcuts are located in various locations depending on your Windows version. It may be discovered, for example, by right-clicking on “Computer” and navigating to the Disk Management section of “Computer Management.” Similarly, it may be found in the Control Panel’s “Computer Management” section under “Administrative Tools.”
The Quickest Way to Access Windows Disk Management
It is possible to open “Disk Management” straight from a “Run” command on almost every version of Windows. To do so, press and hold the Windows key while tapping the letter “R” on your keyboard. This brings up the Run command dialog box.
Press “OK” after typing “diskmgmt.msc.”
Alternatively, you may find a shortcut by searching for disk management in the start menu.
Step 3: Select the Correct Hard Drive to Configure
You’ll need to identify your freshly installed hard drive now that disk management is accessible.
It is essential that you choose the right drive since the next procedures will wipe all data on that disk.
A notification from Disk Manager may appear indicating that a disk must be initialized before it can be utilized. This indicates that Windows has recognized the new drive. To be cautious, we’ll dismiss this warning and begin the initialization process manually, ensuring that we’re working on the right disk.
Look for a disk with the words “Unallocated Space” written on it, which is represented by a black bar. It will typically be at the bottom of the list if you’ve just inserted the drive (usually but not always).
On certain systems, the disk may seem to be “offline” at first; just right-click on the disk name area and choose “online” to access the disk. If you choose to cancel the initialization pop up as we recommended, it should also display a status of “Not Initialized” in the left column.
Check as many things as possible to be sure you’re looking at the right drive. Check the drive’s size and make sure it matches the one you just physically installed in the computer.
If you just mounted a 120GB hard drive, for example, you should see a 120GB drive with 120GB of free space towards the bottom of the drive list.
Right-click on the Disk number in the left column and choose “Properties” to see the Drive’s manufacturer and model. Check the model against the drive you just installed to make sure they’re the same.
Our images below were obtained from a ‘VMware virtual machine,’ which is why a VMware virtual disk appears – normally, this would display as the manufacturer of your hard drive, such as ‘Western Digital.’
Proceed to step 4 after you’re certain you’ve selected the right drive.
If you can’t see your new drive, do a “Rescan” followed by a “Refresh” in Disk Management to detect new drives. The “Action” dropdown option in the Disk Management toolbar may be used to accomplish this.
If you’re certain the Hard Drive isn’t being detected by Windows, turn off the computer and double-check that everything is in working order. Please see our previous blog article on the subject.
After you’ve double-checked that everything is connected properly, see whether the drive appears in the BIOS / UEFI. If it appears here but not in Windows, it’s possible that there’s a hardware compatibility problem.
Step 4: Format the Hard Disk
Before proceeding, make sure you identified the right drive in the previous step since the next steps will wipe all data on the chosen disk.
The drive must now be “Initialized” and “Formatted.” We’ll choose a partition style and file system as part of this procedure.
Choose “Initialize Disk” from the context menu when you right-click on the disk name in the left column.
You will now be prompted to choose a partition style. Take a look at the information on the various partition styles provided below. (Hint: you’re probably looking for GPT.)
Styles of Partitions
The term “partition style” describes how Windows organizes available hard drive disk space in order to store your data. GPT and MBR are the two choices here, and we’ll go through the differences between them briefly:
GPT (Goods and Services Tax) (GUID Partition Table)
The most of the cases, you’ll want to go with GPT (GUID Partition Table). This technique of partitioning is considerably more contemporary, durable, and future-proof. GPT is supported by almost all contemporary operating systems, and all UEFI motherboards allow you to boot from a GPT drive.
MBR MBR MBR MBR MBR M (Master Boot Record)
MBR is a kind of partitioning that has been around for a long time. Only drives up to 2TB in size may be formatted, and only four main partitions can be created. There are methods to create additional divisions, but it becomes a tangle.
The only time you’d utilize MBR these days is if you’re running an older operating system (such as Windows XP) or if your motherboard has an older BIOS that doesn’t support the more current UEFI. The motherboard will not be able to boot from a GPT disk without UEFI, but it may still be used as a secondary drive.
Select a partition style and click “OK.”
Examine your disk; you should now see “Online” rather than “Not Initialized” written on it. At this point, the partition will still be shown as “Unallocated” on the right panel.
Choose “New Simple Volume” from the context menu when you right-click on the “Unallocated” portion of your new drive.
When you click “next” on the Wizard’s welcome page, you’ll be sent to the “specify Volume Size” area. This is set to the size of the whole drive by default, which is acceptable for most users.
Optionally, you may split the disk into many tiny partitions, each with its own Windows drive letter. This is a pretty straightforward job, but it is outside the scope of this tutorial.
Set the “Simple volume size in MB” to the disk’s maximum size and click “Next.”
The next screen prompts you to choose a drive letter or NTFS mount point. You should assign a drive letter unless you have a very particular use case.
Choose anything you want here; Windows will only let you choose letters that aren’t allocated to you.
However, the letters A and B should be avoided since they were historically used by floppy drives and may not be detected properly in extremely old applications.
The “Format Partition” section follows. We’ll choose the file system type, allocation unit size, and volume label from this menu. Before you go any further, make sure you read the following.
Let’s take a quick look at each of the choices you have here once more:
File system
You’ll have the option of using NTFS, FAT32, or ExFAT. Without getting into too much detail, for a normal hard disk, you’ll almost always want to use NTFS. If you need to transfer the hard drive to a computer with a different operating system later, FAT32 and exFAT may be helpful. These days, FAT is more often found on USB memory sticks and other similar devices.
Size of the Allocation Unit
It’s quite OK to leave this at Default. You may customize the Allocation unit size to assist improve the drive’s performance and balance wasted space, although this is only necessary in severe cases. You may choose a higher Allocation Unit Size such as 64K to assist improve speed if you just want to keep extremely large files on this drive, such as video files, but it’s doubtful you’ll notice any difference.
Label for the Volume
As shown in Windows, this is the name of the new drive. The first disk on your system, for example, is called “Local Disk” by Windows. Give the new drive a name that will help you remember what it is later.
Make a Quick Format.
It’s OK to select fast format if this is the first time you’ve used the drive. You may uncheck this option if you’re reformatting an old drive and want to make sure the previous data is fully erased before writing to it, or if you’re uncertain about the disk’s state.
Compression of files and folders is enabled.
We advise against utilizing file and folder compression in Windows due to the cheap cost of hard disk space. In our view, the performance hit and associated difficulties are not worth the space savings.
Select your preferred file system, allocation unit size, and volume label, then click Next. On the last screen, review your settings before pressing “Finish.”
Step 5: Double-check what you’ve done.
Re-examine the disk management screen. You should notice a drive letter linked with your new hard drive once the disk has completed formatting (this should be nearly immediate if you selected rapid format). For example, “MyData (E:)”. From now on, Windows will recognize your new disk in this manner.
Check out the new drive by opening Computer or Explorer from the start menu. Copy some files onto the disk to make sure everything is working properly.
That’s all; you should now be able to access and format your new hard disk.
Please let us know if this tutorial was helpful or if you believe anything is missing in the comments area. Please let us know if you have any walkthrough requests, and we will try our best to fulfill them!
The how to connect hard drive to pc is a process that can be done in two ways. The first way is to use the SATA cable and plug the hard drive into one of the motherboard’s SATA ports. The second way is to connect it with an USB 3.0 port on your computer.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is SATA configuration?
The SATA configuration is the standard for how hard drives are connected to a computer.
What SATA mode should I use for HDD?
The best mode for HDD is AHCI.
Related Tags
- how to connect hard drive to motherboard
- how to enable hard drive in bios
- how to install a hard drive windows 10
- where to plug in sata cable on motherboard
- how to enable hard drive in bios msi
