Fix PC Lag - How To Add Internal Memory To PCs - Easy Hard Drive DIY

Computer slowing down? Programs beginning to lag? Games losing frame rates or getting serious lag effect? Perhaps your project rendering takes longer and playback skips? I was having these problems and I solved it by adding another internal drive and moving my extra stuff (i.e. bulky media files) to the new drive and leaving the primary drive for software and system content. I bought a new HDD but you could also use a repurposed drive; I’ve done this with used drives and drives I salvaged from computer autopsies (i.e. deconstructed computers). Why does this help? Glad you asked… your drive that contains the operating system needs room for the operating system's temporary files. By using a different drive for extra software and for storage, you provide the computer with room to work.

Before buying: unplug your computer, open it up and make sure you have the available space and wires. You need a place to plug it into the motherboard (most PCs have multiple extra SATA ports), a drive bay to anchor the new drive to the PC and a power connection coming from your computer’s power supply. My computer only had one drive (not including the CD/DVD drive) at first so I had a couple of unused 6 pin Molex power cables and 3 extra SATA power cables. I used one of the SATA power cables.

Bass Nado, who does the IT support for “Sharp Shooting Shark Gaming,” taught me the following method for formatting a new disk drive without needing to enter the Bios settings (but...your mileage may vary; i.e. I can account for every potential configuration):

Click the “Start” button
Go to “Computer” and Right Click
Scroll to “Manage” and select it (A new window opens up)
Click on “Disk Management” in the left column under “Storage”
If a window pops up, then just close it
Find the new disk – in a row most likely below the primary drive (it may say “Unformatted” or “Unallocated” next to the drive)
Right Click on the new drive icon/letter
Select “Initialize Disk” (A new window opens up)
Defaults should be set to “Master Boot Record” (MBR); Click “OK”
Right Click in the “New Volume” box, where it says “Unallocated”
Select “New Simple Volume” (A new window opens up: “New Simple Drive Wizard”)
On the first “New Simple Drive Wizard” box Click “Next” (A new window opens up)
Leave the default selections and Click “Next”
The window will change to “Assign Drive Letter or Path.” Click on the down arrow and select a new drive letter (I used “J”) and then Click “Next” (A new window opens up)
Leave the default selections in the “Format Partition” window and Click “Next” (A new window opens up)
In the “Completing The Simple Volume Wizard” window Click “Finish”
A few moments later the process will be complete (wait for your status icon to return to normal)
Go back to the “Computer” screen from the second step and look for the new drive

In a previous video I also showed you how you can try to recover your data from a dead computer: https://youtu.be/7DmJfphVZjc.
Once done, the salvaged drive can be installed in another PC and reformatted for use (assuming that the drive was not previously infected or severely damaged of course).

Title Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/