My dad has a spare computer sitting around at his office that was given to him about a year ago or so. however, the hard drive is broken. i was considering getting a new hard drive and installing it, but i'm hesitant to do so because i have no idea what the specs of the computer are or what type of hard drive i need to buy for it. is there anyway to check the specs of this computer?? (it's a dell <_< , and i'm not sure what model it is because i'm at home currently and can't get to it right now).
I'm not really on a tight budget.... just looking for a quality hard drive with about 160-200gb. anyway i could check the specs on it before buying the hard drive? as in processor speed, ram, etc.? thanks xelink.
I would suggest just buying a 20gb drive, to test out the computer. if the computer is dead, then you wasted a large drive on it...
as xmaster said, test another drive on it... if not, then there are 250GB cavier for something likem80--90ish on newegg.. I'd link you but neweg seems to be quite slow right now...
yeah, true, that's what i don't want to do. but i'll just put the hard drive in teh computer i am using now, i need more space anyway. Merged Post: do you mean use the hard drive i have on my current computer to test it out?
You don't need Processor, RAM, etc. to use a harddrive.. If you needed anything, you would need just need the motherboard. But if the computer was manufactured, like late 90's, then you should be okay with buying an IDE Harddrive, because that is pretty much the "standard".
yeah, i know, but if the computer isn't it great, i'm probably not going to use it. i want to make sure it is a decent computer before i spend $100 on a hard drive, that's all.
ok, run CPUz(google it) and tell use the specs. Processor, Ram and GFX solution also, for day to day use, You don't need a really good computer or anything of the sort, browsing the internet is normally bottle necked by your net conenction/site's server and typing is bottle necked mostly by the typer.
Ok, turns out the computer wasn't too great, and wasn't upgradeable :-/. I'm planning to get a new hard drive for the computer I have now anyway. However, I want to be able to use the same hard drive for the computer i'm planning to build in the next month. Any suggestions on what to buy? I checked the hard drive for this computer and it's IDE. I'm not really sure what that means nor what I need to use for the computer I'm going to build later on. Do the newer motherboards support a hard drive that I will be using for the old system I have now? Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. Merged Post: OK, I'm going to buy an IDE/ATA133 hard drive. The crappy motherboard I have now only supports ATA100... will the hard drive I want still work on this motherboard?
Not upgradeable? You sure? To not be able to switch hard drives seems a little too sitty, even for dell...
It IS upgradeable, but it's so old it's not really worth upgrading. The RAM is pc133, mobo is very bad and has very little pci slots (2 i believe), and so forth. I'm not sure what the processor speed was, because I never bothered installing a hard drive in it/installing xp on it. According to a few sites, however, that model has anywhere from a 1.4ghz-1.7ghz P4 :-/. So yeah, I'm just going to save up about 200 more dollars and buy parts and build a new computer myself.
