My hard drives knackered according to my local Computer shop and they want £140 to install a new one. Google suggests installing a new HD is reasonably straight forward and I'd like to learn how as well as saving myself c£100 if possible – I have a Windows XP cd which I think has all I need to install. For anyone who's done this is it reasonably easy to do via a few Google/microsoft instructions or should I just pay and avoid hours of hassle?

So long as you're not a complete techno-cretin (My mum's phrase to describe herself…) then it's a pretty easy task. worst case, you'll just have to take it to the shop and pay them so nothing lost.

Dead easy to do these days.

£140 Jesus, is that with the HD?

Lid off, unscrew old one, screw in new one, swap cables over. Only gotcha is setting master / slave jumpers on the new drive, but there's always a label explaining it.

Dead easy, are you installing it as a 2nd drive or as the master drive?

What sort of XP disc have you got? Is it for a full install, upgrade or a branded eg Dell 'recovery' disc?

Don't forget to ground yourself before touching anything in the computer, rub your hands on a radiator for a few seconds beforehand. And don't forget to unplug said computer.

As tron said make sure the jumpers are set to Master if it's your main drive.

But don't worry, its easy.

ebuyer.com has good deals on HDs.

£140? I hope that includes a 1.5TB drive going in for that.

Thanks all and good point re having a go costing me nowt – like that. New HD would be the master and only one. I'll order the new HD today (£140 was incl. a HD) as think my XP disc was used by a mate when he reformatted my old one a while back so presumably it's a full one (if not I'm sure he'll send me another if I ask nicely ;)).

Do you know whether you need a SATA or IDE drive?

Think it's SATA but will check old drive when I collect it today and order similar. Thanks.

I wouldn't worry about jumpers unless it's really old – most are either SATA (point to point connection, so no master / slave) or Cable Select anyway.

New drive of around 1Tb is about £50 online so you've nothing to lose trying it yourself. Biggest issue is likely to be if XP can't recongise your disk controller.. you'd need to make a driver floppy up to feed it during install which might be awkward without a PC.