Adding additional internal hard drive

[Jiligan1969]

I want to add an additional internal hard drive to my desktop, but not sure which one I need to buy.  Can anyone help? HP Desktop MO1-1046

[BeemerBiker]

I believe your product ID is 1J7P1AA please verify that.

The parts list for 1J7P1AA is here and indicates you have an Erica5 motherboard, part number L56021-604

I was unable to find a HP hosted photo of that motherboard but I did find two on eBay

You have 3 SATA connectors for hard drives or optical disks

The white and light blue below the heat sink and the dark blue to the right of the memory sockets

Any empty SATA can be used to attach another disk drive.  You will have to obtain an SATA data cable and possibly you may need a splitter cable to provide power unless there are spare connectors on the existing SATA power cables.  Most systems have at least one spare connector available.

[Jiligan1969]

Hello again, you are correct on my product ID. I bought an internal hard drive about 6 months ago, but I think I bought the wrong one.  I bought a Western Digital 1.0 TB 64 MB cache, 3.5 inch. Will this work with my computer? Thanks for all of your help.

[BeemerBiker]

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@Jiligan1969 wrote:

Hello again, you are correct on my product ID. I bought an internal hard drive about 6 months ago, but I think I bought the wrong one.  I bought a Western Digital 1.0 TB 64 MB cache, 3.5 inch. Will this work with my computer? Thanks for all of your help.

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The WD should work fine.  Is it to replace the existing disk that has windows or is it to be a data disk with a letter "E" or "F" etc.?

Western Digital uses a version of Acronis to allow owners to clone their old disk into the new one.

https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en&p=502

It works well and I have used the licensed version on windows XP, 7,8,10 and 11.  I assume the free one works also..

You will need to find a place to mount the drive and will need to obtain an SATA data cable.  Your power supply should have an power connector.  

[Jiligan1969]

Hello again, I did purchase a sata cable along with this hard drive. The reason I want to add an additional hard drive is because I only have 256 gb on mine. So I’m adding 1TB for more storage on my computer. Thanks a bunch for your help! 😊

[Jiligan1969]

Hello again, I did install the additional internal hard drive with no problems, however it is not letting me initialize the hard drive. I've looked on HP support and did what it said, but it's still not working. Can you help me out with this issue? Thank you so much!