It depends on why your computer is down. If it's because the drive has
failed, there may be no way to recover your files, at least not without
calling upon a (usually expensive) data recovery service. If the drive is
ok and you're getting the new disk just to get more storage room, installing
the OS (assuming you have a CD for the proper version, not an upgrade
version) is not a difficult task. If fact, you might not even need the
installation CD as some drive manufacturers include utility software that
can copy everything over to the new drive and make it bootable. Afterwards
you can simply copy your data files over to the new disk. But all your
programs will probably have to be reinstalled from scratch, not merely
copied. Another alternative that I'd consider, but again it will only work
if your original drive is okay, is to add your new disk as a second drive
while leaving the first one in place. Assuming you have the drive bays to
house them, most motherboard's hard-drive controllers will accomodate up to
4 physical drives. Copy your data files over to the new drive but leave the
OS and your programs on the original as the boot drive. Just did that a few
weeks ago on my own PC in fact. Couldn't resist the bargain sale price Best
Buy had on 200 gig drives so I grabbed up one and added it to my computer in
addition to its existing 500 gig RAID array just to use for audio/video
project working storage.
