Replace your old harddrive

WD20EARS 2TB SATA

Last meeting (Aug 6th) we replaced an 80GB SATA drive with a Western Digital 2TB SATA (WD20EARS).  I stumbled a little as I was trying to recall the exact steps I took months ago. 

The drive purchased was a:

Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal 

that I bought from Newegg.com for $76.

The software I used for the drive prep and cloning is available to everyone on the Western Digital webpage.
Advanced Format Software
Acronis True Image WD Edition
After preparing the blank hard drive with the Advanced Format Software we cloned the original hard drive to the new 2TB drive using the Acronis True Image WD Edition software. We shut the pc down, swapped drives and booted it up with 1.8TB more than we had 30 minutes before.
I usually label the old hard drive as an ARCHIVE with the date and keep it safe.
If you ever had to or wanted to restore your OS you could use that ARCHIVE image.

Don't forget to buy a SATA cable ($5), you will need one just for the prep and cloning operation, store it away with your ARCHIVE drive when done.

Next time I would like to show you a different method of doing the same thing, which is also good for making backups.