This is new to me , hope someone can help me with my problem. I have a dell computer and the orginal hard drive is making a lot of noise.
I got another hard drive(1t. & 7200 rpm) to expand the memory and speed. Should i clone it if the old is going out? I put the new hard drive in and installed the disk, it does not show it being installed , when i click on 'my computer' it shows 'c' drive and not the new hd.
Help...

Depends on the PC and the type of connections and the abilityof the items. Is it IDE and are there jumpers pins on the back end of each HD? The main HD has to be set as the master and the 2nd HD set as the slave. If there are jumper pins involved you'll have to research the proper settings. They sometimes are printed on the HD itself somewhere. Go into the BIOS and check the HD IDE settings...see if there is an "auto" setting or "cable select setting." Even if it is SATA connections, there may be something in the BIOS to do. Google the specific model of your PC and research the BIOS settings, as well as the HD's for any specific pin settings.

Also check that the drive is showing up in the bios, if it is you need to format it before it will show up in my computer/computer, click start > right click computer > manage > storage > disc managment and wait a few seconds to search for drives, your new one will most likel;y show up there in boxes at the bottom of page

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right click in number one circle and initialise

right click in 2 circle and new simple volume or format and just follow instructions,

best to accept the default settings it will more or less do it itself, if the original drive is on its last legs you can use hdclone Miray Software - HDClone - Hard disk copy, hard disk backup, hard disk rescue! as long as the second drive is bigger than the first, or if theres not much of importance on the drive back up what you need and do a full reinstall

In answer to your question of if you should clone the hard drive.

I would answer yes. Cloning the hard drive will keep you from having to reinstall all the software, updates, and drivers. Not to mention you don't have to worry about loosing anything. Just clone it before your old one gets too bad off.