Removing and Replacing Drives
Your PC has several drives that you can replace or upgrade. See the preceding topic, “Locating Components Inside the Computer” on page 7 for drive type and location.
The hard disk drive is either a Serial ATA (advanced technology attachment) drive, which uses a narrow data cable, or a Parallel ATA drive, which uses a wide data cable.
Select models have a second hard disk drive.
CAUTION: Back up your personal files on the hard disk drive to an external storage device, such as a CD, before removing the hard disk drive. Failure to do so will result in data loss. After replacing the hard disk drive, you need to run System Recovery using the recovery discs to load the
You can add an optical drive into an empty lower optical drive bay.
IMPORTANT: Before adding a new optical drive, make sure that it is compatible with the Microsoft Windows Vista™ operating system. Also, make sure you have the correct software and drivers for the optical drive to work with the operating system.
Removing an Optical Drive
1Complete the procedures to prepare the PC to remove the side panel and to remove the front panel. See “Opening and Closing the PC” on page 1.
2Release the drive by pulling the latch out away from the chassis and then pulling the drive part way out of the front of the chassis. (The latch drive brackets secure the drives in their respective positions in the chassis.)
8Upgrading and Servicing Guide
