How to Upgrade Your Hard Drive and Operating System in Vista

Turn off the computer and unplug it., Plug in your new INTERNAL hard drive to the computer., Plug in your computer and boot it up., Find your hard drive's product number somewhere in the "drives" list.,Log in to your computer like normal., Go to the...

13 Steps 2 min read Medium

Step-by-Step Guide

  1. Step 1: Turn off the computer and unplug it.

    If it's not a SATA drive, set it to "slave" not "master" to avoid control conflicts with your normal hard drive., When It displays your computer maker's Logo there should be somewhere that tells you "setting press F10" or something like that.

    If it tells you what button to go into BIOS press that.

    You will be checking to see if the hard drive does in fact work, formatted or not., If so, it's all good and the computer recognizes the drive.

    If you don't see the drive and you plugged everything in right, take it to a computer shop and ask for help.,, Select something that says "Manage" or "Disk Management".

    You are going to see if the new drive is good to go or needs formatting. , If you Don't see your new disk in the same area on the list, scroll down and it will be in one of those slots near the bottom with a black bar above it, indicating it is "Unpartitioned". , You're going to wipe the drive clean and format it to work with windows properly. , When done, it will be back in that list with a blue bar, not a black one.

    It's good to go! , It says you have to pay for it or take the trial.

    Take the trial.

    It is available for only 30 days so if you're going to do this once it's perfect! Trust me people, after 3 days and a dozen freeware programs with no success, this one worked perfectly.

    It took around an hour to complete. , Select the drive you want copied and the drive you want the copy to go to.

    Begin the process.

    Even though it hasn't done anything, it will tell you the system has to be restarted.

    This program works during boot! So allow it to restart and it'll do it's thing. , Press anything, then unplug your old hard drive and plug your new one into the same cables.,
  2. Step 2: Plug in your new INTERNAL hard drive to the computer.

  3. Step 3: Plug in your computer and boot it up.

  4. Step 4: Find your hard drive's product number somewhere in the "drives" list.

  5. Step 5: Log in to your computer like normal.

  6. Step 6: Go to the "Start Section" and right-click "My Computer".

  7. Step 7: Go to the Memory section and you'll see your normal Main Hard Disk.

  8. Step 8: Right click that "Unreadable" drive and select "format" or "Create New Section" or something like that.

  9. Step 9: Just go through the formatting wizard with all standard settings.

  10. Step 10: Download the "Acronis True Image Home" program.

  11. Step 11: Run Acronis and choose the "clone" option.

  12. Step 12: Get a message "press any button to shut down".

  13. Step 13: Windows will boot up like normal!

Detailed Guide

If it's not a SATA drive, set it to "slave" not "master" to avoid control conflicts with your normal hard drive., When It displays your computer maker's Logo there should be somewhere that tells you "setting press F10" or something like that.

If it tells you what button to go into BIOS press that.

You will be checking to see if the hard drive does in fact work, formatted or not., If so, it's all good and the computer recognizes the drive.

If you don't see the drive and you plugged everything in right, take it to a computer shop and ask for help.,, Select something that says "Manage" or "Disk Management".

You are going to see if the new drive is good to go or needs formatting. , If you Don't see your new disk in the same area on the list, scroll down and it will be in one of those slots near the bottom with a black bar above it, indicating it is "Unpartitioned". , You're going to wipe the drive clean and format it to work with windows properly. , When done, it will be back in that list with a blue bar, not a black one.

It's good to go! , It says you have to pay for it or take the trial.

Take the trial.

It is available for only 30 days so if you're going to do this once it's perfect! Trust me people, after 3 days and a dozen freeware programs with no success, this one worked perfectly.

It took around an hour to complete. , Select the drive you want copied and the drive you want the copy to go to.

Begin the process.

Even though it hasn't done anything, it will tell you the system has to be restarted.

This program works during boot! So allow it to restart and it'll do it's thing. , Press anything, then unplug your old hard drive and plug your new one into the same cables.,

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Isabella Chavez

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