Scenario: You turn on your computer and Windows won’t start. Or, you download a nefarious attachment that roasted your operating system. Or, you computer is so infested with malware, it’s nearly impossible to use in a sensible manner. Either way, your important documents, pictures, music, and other legal media have been rendered useless, along with your borked copy of Windows.

Solution: Install a second hard drive in your computer which will now house all your important stuff. Windows (your “operating system”) will reside on its own hard drive, so when things get nasty, you won’t need to kick the dog because your favorite video has been lost. Seriously though, remember that hard drive failure is not uncommon, and this sort of setup (generally speaking) should provide a safer digital environment. This is because system drives experience heavier loads than secondary drives that store information not accessed as often. Hard drives are manufactured to withstand heavy loads for quite some time, but like any mechanical device, it can only handle so much and can significantly decrease its useful life.

You have two options for installing a second hard drive:

1. Internal hard drive installation (more work, more know-how)
2. External hard drive installation (what installation?)

Internal hard drives take some “know-how” as I put it. First, does your computer case have physical room for another hard drive? Do you have an unused IDE or SATA cable available? Does your BIOS support hard drives larger than 137GB? Blah blah blah! And then, do you know how to open your computer case? Do you know how to configure the jumpers on the hard drive? Blah blah blah! Did you remember to wear your anti-static wrist band? Don’t forget the screws! Oh yeah, let’s hope you don’t put too much load on your power supply either… and don’t forget to format the new drive for use. Mind numbing geekiness, I know. Try an external drive if you’re lacking a computer tech or if you’ve decided not to torture yourself with learning the latest in computer technology.

External hard drives are as easy as plugging in the power (you know what a power outlet is right?), connecting the USB or Firewire cable to your computer, and finding a cozy home for the new piece of hardware (on your desk perhaps?). Most external hard drives come pre-formatted too. Plug ‘er in and play!

The Basics: Once the external hard drive is plugged in, Windows will automatically configure it and pop up a window asking what you want to do. I usually tell it to open the window with explorer so I can view the files on the hard drive. Alternatively, you can double-click My Computer and the new drive should be visible there. Now, you can organize and store your documents on the new external drive as you normally would. Create folders/directories for Pictures, Music, Documents, and so forth.

Tech Tip: If you store all your documents in the desktop folder “My Documents” and would now like that folder to be where your new external hard drive is, simply right click on My Documents and select Properties from the context menu. Click the “Move…” option and browse to the new location on your new hard drive. Now, all “My Documents” references in Windows will automatically go there. This is handy because Windows defaults many of the “Save as” functions to the My Documents folder.

I wrote this short article because I experienced two tech calls yesterday involving personal documents and data on system drives that nearly become unusable. Do yourself a favor and protect your important stuff by keeping it away from that volatile system hard drive.

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