I’m going to ask Santa (my girlfriend) for an internal hard drive for Christmas. Before I send her off in a wild goose chase, how can I find out what type of interface I have?
My Everest utility tells me the following:
Driver Description WDC WD800BB-75CAA0
Driver Date 7/1/2001
Driver Version 5.1.2535.0
Driver Provider Microsoft
INF File disk.inf
Device Manufacturer
Company Name Western Digital Corporation
but not whether IDE, SATA etc.
How can I find out? BTW, It’s a Dell but the invoice is not that helpful either.
Are you adding a second drive or replacing an existing one?
Check out the WD web site for specific information on a specific drive.
My HD ref. bk. is way out of date.
It’s a standard IDE drive (check out WD’s website). If you open up the box, you should see a fat gray cable running from the disk to the motherboard (and quite probably to the CD-ROM as well).
Go into Control Panel->System->Hardware->Device Manager and look for an ATA controller. It should have either IDE, SATA or both listed there. However, you might cocievably have all of one type of slot filled up in which case the easiest thing to do would be to open up the case and take a look around.
Like others said, it is an IDE hard drive. Other types are still fairly rare for home computers and were very rare when yours was made. SATA hard drives are still trying to gain ground.
Hard drives are basically commodity items. You can tell your Santa to pick out one from Western Digital, Maxtor, or Seagate. Some people have a brand preference but it isn’t consistent and I consider them interchangeable.
You want at least 7200 rpm but that is standard too. Specify the size you want and you are all set. 120 gb models are pretty big and at a price sweet spot. 160 gb ones are too.
As for size, the one caveat I can think of is what OS you are running. Earlier Windows OSes do not do well with very large hard drives, meaning you might have to partition the drive once or twice. I think the limit is 137 gigabytes, but don’t quote me on that.
Awesome! Not only are you guys smart but you will continue to cement my position as a genius in my girlfriend’s mind… Sharing knowledge is a great thing!
I am installing a 3rd drive. I cannibalized an earlier Dell I had for the drive but I’m not sure if I have another empty bay. Yeah, I had no idea about HD interfaces and I just figured a Dell would fit a Dell. Like Shagnasty, said since HD’s are commodities, I lucked out.
It may end up being a second drive if I my ribbon doesn’t have enough connectors.
She’s probbaly going to go to Best Buy and I see on their website that the larger drives (>160GB) are Serial ATA/150 interface, Ultra ATA data transfer etc. Can I use these?
I’m using Windows XP now. However, since I just passed my two core exams for the MCDBA I need to get up to speed with Windows Server 2003 for my next exam. I may use one partition to run Server 2003.
Remember that most motherboards can take up to four IDE devices using two ports. A primary master and slave and a secondary master and slave. If you have more than one optical drive or a Zip drive in the mix you may already be at the four drive limit. (Do media readers use an IDE connection?) You’d then have to get an adapter card that would allow for more IDE drives (this will generally go into a PCI slot on the motherboard) or disconnect a drive. For example, in my computer I have a DVD-ROM, a CD-RW, two IDE hard drives, and a Zip drive. The Zip drive is not connected because of the four drive limit of my motherboard and my lack of an adapter card. However, because I have unused SATA capability I could add two more hard drives (the case will take four internal drives) without worrying about the drive limitation as long as I installed SATA drives.
Serial ATA/150 interface drives are SATA drives and have a special connector to the motherboard. Stay away from those unless you know for sure your motherboard supports it and that is what you want. SATA benefits are underwhelming at this point but it shows promise for later.
Ultra ATA is IDE and that is almost certainly what you want.
Have you considered an external hard drive connected via a USB2 port? I assume you have USB2 ports instead of USB 1’s. You just plug those in and they are as fast as internal hard drives for most applications. I bought an 80gb one for $80 a few weeks ago and bigger ones weren’t that much more. It is way cool and you can take it other places too.
Asterion detailed the normal limits of most motherboards: Two IDE channels, each allowing up to two IDE drives. The ribbon cables will have at most connectors for two drives each and it is not possible to simply crimp on a third.
There’s a chance the cables themselves might not be ribbon-like. For a few bucks more, you can get cables where the 80 wires are bundled in a thin tube rather than a flat ribbon (this website describes altering standard cables). This allows better airflow through the case, though the cable’s function and limitations are unchanged.
There are motherboards with an extra two IDE channels (or you can drop in an card adding more channels), allowing connection of up to eight IDE drives. I myself have six (I used to have eight, but was getting oddball problems with my RAID array). You might just have to sacrifice your smallest cheapest drive if you run out of connections. I suggest that after you make a backup of everything on this drive you want to keep, follow these steps:
[list=#][li]Boot from this drive (altering jumpers or BIOS settings as required)[/li][li]Install an operating system on it (if other hard drives are in the system, be careful not to screw them up)[/li][li]Install necessary office and internet software[/li][li]Remove the drive, put in it a static-free mylar bag, store it in a safe place[/list][/li]
Thus, if something happens to your primary, you can swap in this backup drive and be up and running in less than ten minutes.
As another choice, check with your friends and immediate family. Likely someone has an older computer and could benefit from your hand-me-down drive. Just make sure all the donkey porn is removed before giving it away.
The biggest problem (well, one of them) with Dell computers is the case itself - with little or no room for alteration or expansion. You might consider buying a new full-sized case, taking a Saturday, and moving over all your components. After that, upgrades are a relative breeze.
Sharing knowledge is a great thing!