You will laugh, but I passed entire week to learn everything possible about HDD (read: "hard disc"). I had problems with my PC from the first day I have it in my house, but from the autumn it was impossible to work normally with it. I had to wait even hours that it turns on, because it turned off and then turned on without stop.One friend said me: or is necessary to clean it, or the hard disc wants to broken, -and it's old too (more then 3 years).
Bad notice for me. Because I don't believe the technicians that live here in this zone. It was different times that they finished to breake my objects, and I had to pay them for it, too. But I remembered that one of the PC-magazines I have, had an article about how to change the hard disc (ComputerBildItalia 06/2005, p.22-27)... Fortunatelly I found that article in the bag with magazines ready to throw out.
I. You can do it yourself.
If you have to change the hard disc, first you have to know
-what interface has your old hard disc. The prblem is not the hard disc, but the connection between it and mother... The wire, in other words. You can use that old wire if your new HDD has the same interface.
There are about 20 of these interfaces, so if my HDD has UltraATA/100 I can't buy SATA, and the most of HDD in e-shops have this SATA. If you want to pass to different interface, you need other upgrades.
So, this is the most important thing you have to know when you need a new HDD.
I decided to be very clever and to buy HDD from the same mark, model but with more GB inside. I don't need great capacities, but always better is to have some more place here. My friend told me about 500GB -and I looked for those HDD ... and was not right.
The second thing you have to know, that your PC can make you a strike
1/if you pass from 160GB directly to 500. Specially if you have an old PC. So, they say, it's better to do it gradually.
2/ if your old PC had few rotations/min (rpm) and you pass to one with 7200 rpm or 10000 rpm because it becames too hot. In this case you need other upgrades.
The third thing is:
if your old HDD is alive, you can 1/ put inside the new disc (connect to the old -it's very simply), 2/ copy everything from old to new disc and only after that 3/ take the old disc out of PC. (I have a precious recovery programs for example)
Ready?
Here you will find all the instructions for different types of interface installations
And these is clear and simple ATA installation guide where you can also pass from the link I wrote you befor.
I was in the shops and supermarkets today and found that it's more convinient to buy on-line. Prices are VERY different. I wanted to change my broken DVD-writer too and it costs 2 times less in internet (44,50 and 27,80 in my case).
By the way. There is an interesting new technology to write titles and even images and photos on the lable-part of you CD or DVD. It's LightScribe. Incredibly! This address gave me a webmaster of the e-shop to explain me what is the difference from 2 types of DVD-writters.
Now, I have to wait that my pack arrives...
and learn HOW to copy from one disc to other...
Second step: To change HDD: ready for the last stepPhotos are from this page
