replacement HD

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by chas267, Aug 9, 2011.

  1. chas267

    chas267 Private E-2

    I have an old Compaq Presario I'd like to upgrade the HD capacity in by replacing the old HD .... it's only a 160 GB Samsung SP 1604N 7200 RPM Ultra DMA Spinpoint .... Is there a model that will plugin to the system and replace the old one with 500GB or 1TB .... I have a brand new HD with Windows7 already installed, but it won't plug in to the existing wire harness ... it's a Seagate Barracuda ... 7200.12 500GB .... the plugins are totally different .... any help would be great .... thanks
     
    chas267, Aug 9, 2011
    #1
  2. DavidGP

    DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member

    Hi


    The reason likely that your Windows 7 HDD will not plug into your Compaq with the Samsung SP drive is the new one will likely be SATA and the old one is ATA connections they are vastly different. Info HERE and HERE

    So what you will need to get is a HDD which is IDE/ATA/133 and something like this HERE (do search around for prices, makes and models of drive at your local and favoured online stores) but you will have to check to see if your PCs BIOS will handle drives of 500GB - 1TB and will the version of Windows that you have?

    Is this a desktop, likely is as the SP1604N is a 3.5" drive, so look inside the case and see if you have a spare HDD bay and spare IDE (wideish flat ribbon cable) or connection on your motherboard and you may be able to keep your 160GB and add a space slave drive to add data too.
     
    DavidGP, Aug 10, 2011
    #2
  3. Tueur

    Tueur Sergeant Major

    Additionally there is no guarantee that swapping the drive with a preloaded OS will work. Windows ususally only installs the chipset driver for the Motherboard you have installed so if you try and boot from the same drive on a different MB with a different chipset it wont boot.

    Assuming your use of the Windows that is installed on the drive is legal you should have a copy of the disk and should be able to re-install
     
    Tueur, Aug 10, 2011
    #3
  4. chas267

    chas267 Private E-2

    Thanks for the good advice folks
     
    chas267, Aug 10, 2011
    #4
  5. Digerati

    Digerati Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Besides that, it is likely illegal. Preloaded operating systems are normally OEM licenses and as such, are NOT legally transferable to new computers - ever.

    Sadly, you failed to tell us anything about your Presario - which come in both notebook and desktop varieties. If this is a desktop, I would advise adding a second harddrive instead of replacing the existing harddrive. Then uninstall some of your space hogs from C and reinstall them on D (or whatever the new drive letter or letters are).

    If a notebook, and especially if you don't have the installation and driver disks, I still would advise adding a secondary drive via a USB enclosure.
     
    Digerati, Aug 11, 2011
    #5

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