2nd HDD

[greendog]

Can anyone advise me on how to go about installing a secondary hard drive on my PC?

I have a lot of stuff i don't want to lose and i thought i could back up my primary HDD on it.

I have an old HDD for the job, so can i just reformat it and stick it in or what?

[ACtheTROLL]

just about all you need do
the enclosure option is useful if you need to connect to more than 1 PC ... but if not .... you are on the right track

you don't say anything about your PC ... assuming it's reasonably new (5yrs at most)
you should have a 80 way IDE cable - if it's a year or less quite likely it will be sata.

If it's the ide option
you need to look at the back of your existing HDD1
you should see a set of jumpers next to the connector .... and hopefully somewhere a diagram of how the jumpers are set.
3 options master - c/sel - slave
your existing drive will be set to either M or C/sel

if c/sel set the new (old(?) HDD2 )disc to c/sel also
if master .... set the disc to slave>/b>

tighten the screws
connect the ribbon and power - and bob's your aunt
for more detail - rather than re-inventing the wheel ... read this

finally format .... and go