What do you guys think??

[latingirl]

I ordered my new harddrive.

I ordered from Dell.com. $120.95 + $10.95 for mounting kit - $10 coupon, free shipping, no tax = Total $121.90 PLUS $30 rebate = Net Total $91.90. Actually $80.95 without the mounting kit.

It's the Maxtor 80 GB, 7200 RPM but the buffer is 2MB (what does that mean exactly? is it good enough??)

Now I assumed that HD's are pretty much standard for PC's as far as compatibility, but I've been thinking about it and now I'm worried that its not that simple. I own an HP and it says the interface is EIDE (don't know what that means either). Also, what is ATA??

I'm going to wait to have it installed because I want to purchase windows/office XP first.

Although, I want to try installing it myself. I know that the "guts" of the HP system is really compacted together and was a bit of work for my computer guy to install my zip drive. So I don't know...any tips??

[Nija]

yeah. Don't buy a HP again :P

EIDE is the interface on how it's going to communicate with the computer, as opposed to SCSI. Your computer supports it. ATA roughly how fast it will go. ie ata 100 ata 133 blah.

When I installed my new hard drive to save myself some pain i just took out my cdr-w and replaced it with my HD.

yur gonna need to make sure your BIOS recognizes the HD.

ugh.. can't think there are more, but you probably have nothing to worry about :)

[latingirl]

Thanks Nija. :)

No, I won't be buying another HP. :rolleyes: But its serving its purpose...for now.

[Merlin]

Look on your order form and see if you got an OEM drive or a retail drive. For that price it is probably retail, but check. If it is the retail version it should come with some fairly detailed installation instruction that someone who is not very tech savy could follow. It is not a very difficult process at all. If you can turn a screwdriver you can install the drive. Save your money and do it yourself. If you need any help the folks here will be more than happy to talk you through it.

[Nija]

Originally posted by Merlin
Look on your order form and see if you got an OEM drive or a retail drive. For that price it is probably retail, but check. If it is the retail version it should come with some fairly detailed installation instruction that someone who is not very tech savy could follow. It is not a very difficult process at all. If you can turn a screwdriver you can install the drive. Save your money and do it yourself. If you need any help the folks here will be more than happy to talk you through it.

or you could con one of the local people into going to your home and installing it for you :P most of them prolly will even be nice.. :P

[mcs328]

Are you installing the drive as storage? I mean do you already have a hard drive or is this one for data? In addition to making sure your computer will recognize the full 80 gigs, don't forget the little bit of plastic to set it as Master or Slave on Primary IDE channel.

[latingirl]

Originally posted by mcs328
Are you installing the drive as storage? I mean do you already have a hard drive or is this one for data? In addition to making sure your computer will recognize the full 80 gigs, don't forget the little bit of plastic to set it as Master or Slave on Primary IDE channel.

I'm replacing the cheesy 20gb hd that came standard with my computer. I have a lot of heavy software, plus I need the scratch disk space.

[latingirl]

Originally posted by Nija


or you could con one of the local people into going to your home and installing it for you :P most of them prolly will even be nice.. :P

Okay, and I will be sure to have a few big hefty black dudes on hand to make sure this person stays "in line" :P

Oh, and would you mind coming to South Central L.A. (cause I REALLY DO live in south central).

(but I still want to try my hand at installing it mysewf)

[latingirl]

Originally posted by Yossarian
like nija said, ask your local g|a? tech to put it in for you :hihi:

WHY???

You don't have any faith that I can do it mysewf?? :P

[latingirl]

Originally posted by Merlin
Look on your order form and see if you got an OEM drive or a retail drive. For that price it is probably retail, but check. If it is the retail version it should come with some fairly detailed installation instruction that someone who is not very tech savy could follow. It is not a very difficult process at all. If you can turn a screwdriver you can install the drive. Save your money and do it yourself. If you need any help the folks here will be more than happy to talk you through it.

It says it comes with an "illustrated" installation guide.

My only fear is that its going to take too long or I'm gonna mess up and then I'll be "down" til I can get help. I can't be "computerless" for too long...I don't think I can handle it. :P

[Nija]

Originally posted by latingirl


Okay, and I will be sure to have a few big hefty black dudes on hand to make sure this person stays "in line" :P

Oh, and would you mind coming to South Central L.A. (cause I REALLY DO live in south central).

(but I still want to try my hand at installing it mysewf)

:shrug:

i won't go there at night, but during the day :D

I'm sure you can do it, but sometimes problems arise and having someone local who won't charge you up the bung (BB) is kind of nice.

[latingirl]

Originally posted by Nija


:shrug:

i won't go there at night, but during the day :D

I'm sure you can do it, but sometimes problems arise and having someone local who won't charge you up the bung (BB) is kind of nice.

That's true. When I get my software, I'll PM you to see if you'll be around when I go to install.

I can also bring it to you...so. bay is a hop/skip/jump from the 110fwy, plus I know it like the back of my hand.

Thanks! :D

[Nija]

Originally posted by latingirl


That's true. When I get my software, I'll PM you to see if you'll be around when I go to install.

I can also bring it to you...so. bay is a hop/skip/jump from the 110fwy, plus I know it like the back of my hand.

Thanks! :D

that works too. :D

I live down the street from Del Amo mall :) just for reference :)

[ribitch]

if i remember correctly, you said you do allot of PS work. If thats the case use the 20 GB as your scratch disk. PS trashes your drive, so you need a decently sized scratch disk and a 20 GB drive will be more than enough

[latingirl]

Originally posted by ribitch
if i remember correctly, you said you do allot of PS work. If thats the case use the 20 GB as your scratch disk. PS trashes your drive, so you need a decently sized scratch disk and a 20 GB drive will be more than enough

I thought about that too. But I thought that it would be better if the 80gb was my main drive (there is only room for one internal drive and I thought your main drive must be internal - it won't be a problem saving the data I have and I'll have all the software I need on discs). I gathered this from many of the postings I've read here. Plus an external drive would be more expensive.

Do you think I would have a problem selling the 20gb on ebay or recycler.com (or here)? What do you think the going rate would be?

Oh, and my PS teacher said get all the disk space you can. AND I have other software to allocate drive space for.

[latingirl]

Originally posted by Nija


that works too. :D

I live down the street from Del Amo mall :) just for reference :)

Okay, but for reference, I won't be coming alone. AND I'm a good girl, so don't be gettin any ideas. I know what a FREAK you are! :P

:shifty:

[Nija]

Originally posted by latingirl


Okay, but for reference, I won't be coming alone. AND I'm a good girl, so don't be gettin any ideas. I know what a FREAK you are! :P

:shifty:

:shrug:
I'm taken.

Back to the point. There are others on the board who i'm sure would be glad to help, so don't go thinking i'm your only option :P

And the 80gb AND the 20gb can both stay internal if you have enough space on the bottom of your TOWER case. And a long enough EIDE cable/Power Cable :P

[mcs328]

So will you be transferring the contents of your 20 gig to the 80 gig through Partition Magic or Norton Ghost? Or is this a clean install? I was thinking keep the 20 gig as the main and 80 gig as data but I'm not verse in the technicalites of Photoshop. Yah the installation guide should be easy enough to read and I think nowadays they give you a disk or cd to help format the drive or get the drive ready after you install the hard drive.

You should be fine. :)

[Ladogaboy]

Originally posted by Nija
Back to the point. There are others on the board who i'm sure would be glad to help, so don't go thinking i'm your only option :P


:shifty:

[ribitch]

PS reads and writes to your drive often which causes tons of fragmentation. So adobe allows you to assign a scratch disk, and for optimal performance using IDE, you want to have that scratch space on a seperate IDE controller than your system HD. IDE anly allows 1 disk per chain to be accessed at one time. So if both disks are on different chains, you can acces both at once, which means faster read and writes.

So, tell us your system configuration

How many drives do you have before you add the 80 GB?

I would run the 80 on IDE partitioned however you liek it, and the 20 on IDE 2 with no partitions.

partitioning the 80 and sing a partition as a scratch disk will still yield the same if not slower results if you were to assign that partition as the scratch disk. This is due to the disk being the same physical disk and the fact the parttion will cause the heads to travel more often

[latingirl]

Originally posted by Nija


:shrug:
I'm taken.

Back to the point. There are others on the board who i'm sure would be glad to help, so don't go thinking i'm your only option :P

And the 80gb AND the 20gb can both stay internal if you have enough space on the bottom of your TOWER case. And a long enough EIDE cable/Power Cable :P

From experience..."taken" has nothing to do with it. But I'm glad to see you're noble, though!! (at any rate, I'm just messing with you)

Don't worry...I think I might know of some other options so you may be off the hook. :P

So you are saying that I can just put the drive anywhere in the case where there is "space" and not an actual place to mount. I would assume that I would have to get a drill, some screws and a mounting kit out and create a place for it so its not just "floating around".

And if I remember correctly, I think the motherboard is mounted to the "side" of the case and you have to kind of carefully twist it around (because of the wires) to remove/replace the case. I'd have to look in to see if it's feasible, but if I could use both drives and partition I would like to. Otherwise, it would be a clean install.

Ribitch - a 700+mhz, 512mg RAM (after I install my new 256mg stick), 20 gigger, CD ROM (which I MAY replace with a CD-RW), ZIP Drive (considered using that bay but I need the zip for school) that's all I know at the top of my head. I'm sure its just a run of the mill HP from Best Buy. After that, I'm done. No more space for drives.

Not sure I understand what you meant about partitioning the scratch disc. I thought partitioning would allow the system to use scratch disk space more efficiently. also, you're saying to make the 80gb my main drive (IDE 2 would be the secondary drive, correct?)

[Nija]

my 80gb hd is sitting on top of my floppy drive and it's right below my dvd rom. no cover. If i'm looking at my computer, I can reach in, through the front, and move the HD. I have all my panels off, because I need max air flow, cause i'm too cheap to get extra fans, so i use the ceiling fan. :D

For a while I had my 80 sitting on the bottom of my tower case, for lack of anywhere better to put it :D

[latingirl]

My order hasn't shipped yet...I have to make sure that its a manufacturers rebate.

[latingirl]

It looks like the drive I ordered has been discontinued.

If I buy OEM, I won't recieve a manual. Can I just download one from the manufacturer's site?

Now I'm thinking that if I use both HD's I can just get a 60 or 40gb, since I want to replace this comp altogether next year. :D

[latingirl]

Originally posted by DarkFury

BTW... if your drive has been discontinued, are they still shipping you one out of their inventory? :confused:

Nope, his comp had gone down while he was on the phone with me and he couldn't find a drive for me. I took it as a sign that maybe I should just wait and cancelled my order.

[latingirl]

Originally posted by DarkFury

Let no one ever tell you that you AREN'T a smart girl. :thumbup: :D

Good job... you get a "gold star" for today! :hihi:

Thanks DF! :D

I opened up my comp this morning and there is room at the bottom to "place" another HD. So I will swap the 20gb with the larger gb to use as my main drive and then put the 20gb there as suggested (thanks Nija, DF, everyone else).

So, still looking for a HD deal...now I think I'll go down to a 40-60 gb drive and save mesewf some chips.