Hard drive replacement

frdny1171 2008-12-23 05:57:22 UTC #1

i have the original drive and wish to replace it with a 80gb hard what will happen memory wise to my computer?

madmax 2008-12-29 12:42:39 UTC #2

Whats the size of the original
What kind of drive is it ie SATA or IDE
Is the original not working
Can your computer take 80 gig (how old is it although i would expect it would be ok)
Is it a laptop or a desktop
could you give the specs of your computer or any additional info that will help

Things i look for in a HDD is Capacity,
RPM and Buffer Size plus somtimes the make but i dont really stick to one make just what suits at the
time…
Also important is to check if your computer takes SATA because this is much faster than IDE

p.s I think you are getting memory and drive space mixed up if not then post back

coolcolors 2008-12-29 15:26:14 UTC #3

[QUOTE=frdny1171;2181996]i have the original drive and wish to replace it with a 80gb hard what will happen memory wise to my computer?[/QUOTE]

First what is your O/S your using if you want to use 137G and higher you O/S has to be ie XP pro sp3 or higher to use the larger HDD drives. Also what kinda HDD connectors do you have if IDE your should use 80 pin cable. Also if you plan to use more then one drive you need the set the correct jumper pins as well. Since we don’t know your computer make and model or motherboards we can only toss out the usually requirements that you need.

AllanDeGroot 2008-12-31 12:45:12 UTC #4

[QUOTE=coolcolors;2185403]First what is your O/S your using if you want to use 137G and higher you O/S has to be ie XP pro sp3 or higher to use the larger HDD drives. Also what kinda HDD connectors do you have if IDE your should use 80 pin cable. Also if you plan to use more then one drive you need the set the correct jumper pins as well. Since we don’t know your computer make and model or motherboards we can only toss out the usually requirements that you need.[/QUOTE]

XP-SP3 required to use drives larger than 137gb? No.

I was using a 160gb drive on my P3-500Mhz while still running Win98se.

I’m still using that 160gb drive on my “new” P4-2.6GHz computer running Win2K-sp4.

What limits the maximum HDD size is NOT the OS, but the BIOS
(Firmware) of the computer in question, the BIOS can often be
changed (within limits), but that gets beyond the typical explaining
it to the NEWB answers.

Saying that XP-SP3 is “required” is just plain wrong.

the rest of the reply is correct inthat we need to know the CPU, OS and other parameters of your computer… so we can take an educated guess…

The other question is the IDE/PATA used on older computers (Up to P4)
Vs the newer SATA drives that are used on most “Dual core” or newer computers, though in a desktop you can get appropriate controller cards
to run any type of drive you want… or SCSI (Essentially only used on MAC nowadays)

another issue is that the limits are different when you are discussing
"boot drives" versus “storage drives” but again, that varies with BIOS.

Beginning to see how complex the issue is getting?

as a generalization if you have a Pentium4-2.4GHz or faster you can probably ignore the 132Gb limit, as I have never personally encountered a problem making a 160Gb drive work in a P4-2.4 or better.

as for larger drives? I can’t say, I haven’t tried.

IF you ask me later in January I’ll be prepared to answer, as I will be attempting to install a 320-500Gb in my computer