armada e500 hard drive

[ffr1910]

I know a little about computers in that i can reformat mine and install drivers an such. my hard drive has laid down in my compaq armada e500. it has a 12gb factory HD in it with the following specs: 12gb, ATA, IDE, 4200 rpm, IBM Travelstar. My question is, i dont want to buy one from hp and spend that much money, what can I put in it? what specs must it meet? I am looking at this one at newegg.com, will it work for me? thank you for any help,

Bill

SAMSUNG Spinpoint M MP0402H 40GB 5400 RPM ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive - OEM

[glc]

You have to find out if the bios can handle a drive that large. It may not.

[ffr1910]

glc, thank you for your advice how do i find out? do i go into setup during startup and find the info there?

ffr1910

[glc]

No, you may have to contact HP or post in their forums. There was a common bios limit in those days of 32gb. If it can handle 12gb, it will handle a 20gb or 30gb drive, but a 40 is questionable.

[ffr1910]

do all the other specs for this drive look okay? i dont know what ata and ide mean and if a replacement drive must have those same specs??? thank you for your help,

Bill

[glc]

Notebook drives are notebook drives, the only functional differences are IDE and SATA - and the thickness. A 9.5mm drive will fit in any notebook, 12.7mm drives won't necessarily.

That Samsung is physically compatible with your notebook. However, this drive will DEFINITELY work:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822146040

[ffr1910]

perfect, exactly what i needed. thank you for your help, maybe one day i'll know enough about all of this to answer my own questions, until then, thank you again,

bill (ffr1910)