How do I put cassette tapes onto my hardrive?

Answer 1

You need to connect the "line output" of your cassette player to the "line input" of your computer. If the cassette player has only an ear/headphone output you can use this instead but you will have to experiment with the player's volume setting to get satisfactory results.

Your operating system will probably have a recorder function but a third-party program will usually be better and more versatile.

There is an excellent, and free, program called "Audacity" which I can recommend. A Google search will give you several sites from which you can download it.

If you are intimidated by it all, you can ask a more knowledgeable fried to help.

There will be no noticeable deterioration of sound quality. If you have good recordings on the cassettes you will have good recordings on the PC. (The other correspondent is confused.)

Oh, and by the way, it's hard drive (two words.)

Answer 2

you'll need to have a sound card that has a line in, and a program that can record the audio.

Just be prepared that the audio quality will be very low.