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Conencting a 1TB internal hard drive

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PCVirgin

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Nov 11, 2003
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Can replace my existing 200GB hard drive on a 2004 Desktop PC with a 1TB hard drive?

If so what will I need to upgrade said PC (apart from the new hard drive)?

I am currently running Windows XP with 1GB of RAM and a 1.83ghz processor.


Thanks
 
No way to say without knowing what your existing PC is and whether or not it can actually handle a 1TB drive.

So first we need Make and Model of the PC. From that we can deduce what kind of hard drive interfaces it has.

If the PC has no make that is it was put together by you, then we would need the interfaces it has for hard drives, or at the very east the motherboard it has.

Being 2004, my guess would be IDE HD connectors which would mean you need a SATA PCI card as to my knowlede there are no 1TB drives with an IDE interface. However at that age it won't likely support such a large HD.

Do your really need a 1TB drive, how about 2 500GB drives instead?

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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.
 
Good advice. I want to keep 'all' of my music, photos and documents on one drive rather than several external drives. I dont want to go the server route just yet.

If I did get two 500gb drives I'd have to replace the existing 'C' drive with a new one - which I dont particularly fancy.

Nevertheless I'll consider adding an internal 500GB and an external 500GB.
 
If I did get two 500gb drives I'd have to replace the existing 'C' drive with a new one - which I dont particularly fancy.

Not necessarily. It would depend on how many ports you actually have available, and how many power connectors your PSU has also.

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.
 
Vacunita is on target - you're running a machine that's ancient tech compared to a 1TB drive. BIOS compatibility needs to be verified before you purchase anything or go the route of an add-in card to connect a SATA drive to.

I'd kind of almost wait until you get a new computer and then you are free to choose a bigger boot drive and/or a large storage drive. It's a shame to spend ANY money on a machine that old (like buying an add-in sata controller card).
 
Thank you both for your input. My PC has two bays (already in use) I have an 80GB 'C' drive and a partioned 250GB second drive.

Yes its old, but its like an old friend with software I'm happy with (no I wont go into the long list), plus email accounts where I've forgotten the passwords for etc.

I'll go with the external hard drive and network all laptops and desktops together.

 
By Bays you mean mounting spots? Or Actual IDE ports?

While it may have only 2 hd bays, there are HD rail kits that can let you place HD's in CD-drive bays. But again the limit is likely the amount of power plugs coming from your PSU.

Not necessarily the amount of physical bays.

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.
 
Perhaps at the same time as looking at the bays, can you jot down the motherboards manufacturer and number/letter name.
ie: Asus P5Q-WS as an example

This way we will be able to answer the original question.

Martin

On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep
 
Yeah - mobo info needed and maybe even a picture of the insides.

By the way - old friends eventually DIE. Be prepared for when you have to go to that funeral. If you don't know passwords or don't have software keys, you'll really be hurting at some point in the future.
 
I will try to find out the information required later today.

In the mean time I have purchased a 1TB network hard drive as an alternative solution. This way I can backup 'everything' in case my XP desktop does die, plus all other machines on the network can truly share the data rather than have USB linked external drives attached to the XP machine.
 
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