by Lucien Beauley

Created on: March 14, 2010

Lowest Cost Way of Saving Your Old Computer Hard Drive

With over 100 million [estimated] personal computers being used by individuals in the U.S. computer repair shoppes are making big money on updates and repairing them.

The Individual Solution Is DIY

A Personal Experience

About five years ago I purchased a used PC for $90. locally. It came with Windows 98 and a 10 GB hard drive. At about the same time I began writing articles for one web site and I soon added a second along with free lance photo submissions to the first of these sites. My 10 GB soon began to reach its end about three years ago so I had a 30 GB. drive installed along with Windows XP. I had this upgrade done at a private local computer shop. This cost me close to $200. I kept the original motherboard, power supply and cabinet.

It was just a month ago that my neighbor mentioned having a brand new 250 GB. foe sale and was willing to part with it for $50. I could not pass that up. I was not about to have some computer repair shop do the upgrade and I scanned the web for "how to" tutorials. I first "cloned" my OS[Windows XP]. The method it used left about 225 GB. of unallocated space on the drive. I ended up visiting Seagate at:
http://www.seagate.com

You don't really have to create an account with but I believe it does make things easier in the event one decides to purchase a drive in the near future. I did create a personal account. On the home page just select Support and Downloads. This will bring you to the next screen where you can select DOWNLOADS. This will take you to another screen where you can select either Disk Wizard TM Installation Software for a Seagate drive or Max Blast for[Maxtor Installation software]depending on which one you are installing. In my case I have a Seagate 210-0100 which is the 250 GB. drive I purchased so I downloaded Disk Wizard.

Using this software it is real easy to install virtually any drive that Seagate makes. By following the step-by-step instructions you can clone your OS onto your new drive and then back-up the "clone" in case it were to crash. I still have my Windows XP on my old original[30 GB] master hard drive which is still mounted in my computer but not plugged in. Who knows? If my new drive crashes I have my original OS to fall back on. It was a little bit of work on my part but when I consider the money saved it was really worth it. The software can cost you between $50. and over $120. Of course, you could just use "Manage" by right-clicking on My Computer on your Desktop display and then click on "Disk Management", but I found Seagate's "Disk Wizard" real straight forward.

Learn more about this author, Lucien Beauley.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.