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Step 1: Install hard drive into a drive bay

Slide the hard drive into one of the lower bays in the case. Some cases require you to screw in the hard drive to secure it into the bay and others have a "no tools required" type setup. Go ahead and secure the drive however it is set up in your case.

Step 2: Connect SATA cable to motherboard

Your motherboard should come with a few SATA cables. Yours should look similar to the one below:

Connect one end to the motherboard in the lowest numbered sata connector. Some motherboards label this as "SATA 0" or "SATA 1" or similar. Whichever is the lowest number on your motherboard is the place to plug in the sata cable. Sata cables and connectors have a sideways "L" shape to ensure they can only plug in one way.

Some motherboards support RAID setups and have slots for SATA as well as SATA_RAID. Unless you have multiple hard drives and plan to set up a RAID array, do not connect them to the SATA_RAID connectors.

Step 3: Connect SATA cable to hard drive

Connect the other end of the cable we just plugged into the motherboard, into the back of the hard drive.

Your install should look similar to the one below:

Step 4: Give it power

Connected to your power supply are SATA power connectors. They also have an "L" shape to them but are much wider than a SATA connector. Plug one of these into the back of your hard drive.

Step 5: Repeat any steps for more hard drives

If you are installing more than one SATA drive, repeat steps 1-4. If you are installing an older IDE hard drive, click here for instructions on how to do that.

Next Lesson: Installing a CD/DVD Drive

If you have any IDE hard disk drives you want to install, proceed to Lesson 13b: Installing an IDE Hard Disk Drive.

If you don't have any other hard drives to install, skip to installing a SATA CD/DVD Drive.