Question re: damaged hard drive.

[mongrelpunt]

I have a question on my computer.

Recently my hardrive crapped itself, as I can't boot up through Windows at all, but I can access my files through DOS (where I can copy only files small enough to fit on floppy disks). I am committed to purchasing a new hard drive, but here in lies my problem.

My question is:

a) Can I purchase any sort of new hard drive and put it straight into my computer, or do I need to upgrade it before getting the new drive? Its a Pentium 133 with 16MB Ram (I know its old, but still...), it has just a basic video card and basic everything else.

b) Can I install the old hard drive as well as the new one, and just transfer my files between the two drives, or won't I be able to access the damaged drive at all?

Any information will be very helpful.

 

[jim boy]

Originally posted by mongrelpunt
I have a question on my computer.

Recently my hardrive crapped itself, as I can't boot up through Windows at all, but I can access my files through DOS (where I can copy only files small enough to fit on floppy disks). I am committed to purchasing a new hard drive, but here in lies my problem.

My question is:

a) Can I purchase any sort of new hard drive and put it straight into my computer, or do I need to upgrade it before getting the new drive? Its a Pentium 133 with 16MB Ram (I know its old, but still...), it has just a basic video card and basic everything else.

b) Can I install the old hard drive as well as the new one, and just transfer my files between the two drives, or won't I be able to access the damaged drive at all?

Any information will be very helpful.

It depends a little on the type of cabling for the hard drive. I found that when I updated my PC, which was also a 133, I couldn't the right sort of hard drive, but you might be lucky. Just take out the hard drive and look at the data pins, if it is the same as any potential new drive, then it should be OK, but you'll have to take it into a shop.

If you can access old drive, then you can run two disks off the same operating system. But if you can your old data files, it sounds like your hard disk is ok and that it is your operating system that is corrupt

 

[mongrelpunt]

Re: Re: Question re: damaged hard drive.

Originally posted by Jim Boy
If you can access old drive, then you can run two disks off the same operating system. But if you can your old data files, it sounds like your hard disk is ok and that it is your operating system that is corrupt

That sounds logical, although I tried to re-format the drive it said that there was bad sectors at the start of the drive and re-formatting could not continue.

Thanks for your advice.

 

[Mr Q]

As a rule on machines of that age you won't be able to make a new hard disk work immediately as many older BIOSes do not support hard disks of over 32Gb.

However most hard disks have a work around where you can change the settings on the disk so that it pretends it is only a 32Gb disk (its usually a jumper setting), and the computer can then read it. Of course the side effect of this is that you can only put 32Gb of stuff on the disk - so there's no point in buying a disk that's over 40Gb.

My personal recommendation would be that since you already have to spend money upgrading your machine you might as well spend enough to upgrade the whole thing at the same time assuming you either know how to do an upgrade yourself or know someone who can do it for you.