Fry’s, an electronics mega-store, has some incredibly cheap prices on hard drives. However, in the fine print of the ads are written the words “bare drive only.” This instantly sends my Buyer-Beware instinct into overdrive.
What’s a bare drive?
What additional materials would I need to install a bare drive in my pc?
Thank you very much.
They could mean the kind of drive you get at a computer show. You get the hard drive in a anti-static bag, with a sticker holding it closed. That’s it. (Maybe a driver disk too). No screws, no cables, no pretty box. No proof of purchase, which would be important if you needed it for a rebate. Usually full warranty coverage though, so it’s not that riskey. These are the drives that are sold in 20 packs to systems builders, who don’t need all the extras, since their customer will get it already installed in a case.
I’d have to hazard a guess and say it’s a drive that hasn’t been formatted or partitioned, although I’m not sure why they’d specify since I’ve only ever bought " bare " drives in that case.
If I’m right, you’d have to install the drive, boot from a boot floppy ( if you run Windows you go to Start\Control Panel\Add/Remove Programs and hit the " Create boot disk " tab ) , then run fdisk to partition the drive. It’s got interactive menus, it’s not the greatest utility but it does the job. You might want to read up on it if you haven’t used it.
After you partition you reboot and then format the partition(s) by typing, at the A: prompt
A:\ format c: /s /u
You don’t need those switches but they don’t hurt.
Unless I’m wrong about what they mean by bare drive. You should probably ask them first. Hope that helps.
Yup, that’s exactly what it is. Just the hard drive, in an anti-static bag, inside of a plain cardboard box. No screws, no cables, no manual, and usually, no driver disk(s).
Oh, okay. Just the drive itself without any of the “chrome.”
I was worried that “bare” referred to your only receiving the internal platter/head assembly.
Thanks for the quick responses.