What kind of hard drive do I need.


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Old 07-07-01, 08:13 PM
BuzzKutts-Revenge
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I have an older P/C a Gateway 200mmx, 1.2 gig HD,32mg ram, I bought in Feb of 97.I would like to add a bigger hard drive but the people at gateway won't give me any specs so I can shop around. I wany about a 10 gig but I am not sure my bios will handle it. I would also like to get some more ram, but I am told I need the older expensive kind. Can you help me out with info on both. Thanks BuzzKutt
 
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Old 07-08-01, 07:24 AM
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Hello. Go with a Maxtor hard drive. They were rated the best by pcworld.com Get a 7400 rpm. Comp usa by me has 30 gigs for $99. I have a diamond max maxtor 20 gig 7400, quiet and fast. The memory you might have if it is older is edo ram, this is dirt cheap, you can find it on ebay, if it sdram still dirt cheap, I picked up a 256 dimm for $44 on ebay, new unopened. Check it out and don't go by what gateway has to say, they just want your money, or not to deal with you at all. But I would definately get a larger hard drive.
 
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Old 07-08-01, 08:15 AM
mikejmerritt
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BuzzKutts-Revenge, Ditto on warthog299's Maxtor advice. Stay away from saving $20.00 to go with a non proven off brand because these companies are dropping like flies and you want to use the 3 year warranty if needed. I just installed a 7200 30GB in about 30 minutes and it cost $119.99 at Office Depot. What I would do is remove the old one even if you are going to transfer the contents of the old one to the new one. Take this with you shopping if you don't know if its EIDE or whatever. That way you will come home with one that will plug and play so to speak. I would add the new drive and update my RAM if you have less than 64. You may be well past what I'm telling you but I would do at least two partitions(using Windows fdisk) on the new drive so anything like data, Favorites, Word documents or whatever documents, pics and anything you don't have on disk could be put on a drive letter alone. This way when you backup all you do is send the contents of this drive to your backup system without picking through three drives to locate this stuff and backing up Windows or whatever. Very nice! I don't think as small as your old drive is I would put it back for good but do put it back long enough to transfer its contents to the first partition. Be sure if you do fdisk not to do the old drive only the new one or all will be lost.....Mike
 
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Old 07-08-01, 09:39 AM
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One more thing with Maxtor. The hard drive comes with software to install your new hard drive. This is the best software I have seen yet, better than partition magic and drive copy. I upgraded one computer last night useing the maxtor software and his hard drive is a western digital. This software is awesome! So if your not too experienced on dos with fdisk, the maxtors software will do the job for you. Greg.
 
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Old 07-09-01, 06:10 AM
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Try going to http://www.boisworld.com to find an upgrade to your current bios. If I am not mistaken the first 200mmx boards had bios that limited your HD size to 2.6G. I know that the first release of win95 did, not clear on the size limit though.

If you are restricted on size and you cannot find a bios upgrade (flash or chip) then you will have to partion the disk before it will boot. the bigger the disk the more partitions. Dont forget that you have to format the drive(s) before you can install the os, or any programs.

You can get a 10gig for about the same price as a 20Gig drive, depending on where you look, and how much shipping and handleing will cost.

bewarned though, if the bios flash fails you will have to replace the chip. (in most cases, you might be able to re-reflash, besure to do the flash on a nice clear day or evening so you wont have to worry about power loss or surge.

Brian
p.s check here also for the gateway bios: http://www.gateway.com/support/produ.../nsindex.shtml
 
 

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