Maxtor, Western Digital, Seagate and others..

[Powerstroke2000]

Is there a hard and fast rule of thumb as to which hard drive gives you the best life over a period of time, over the others?
Are any easier to install (if a PC owner wants to install his/her own) than another?

I just ordered a Maxtor 200 GB HD (best price at the moment) and I'm hoping the installation will go well.
My plan is to uninstall the current hard drive, add the new one, and install Windows XP on it (hoping that is easy to do) and then use the old HD as additional space. I will try and retrieve any needed data files, photo's, e-mail etc from this drive, and then reformat it for use as a secondary drive. (slave?)

Is there a site that covers all the information one should be aware of in doing this type of install?
Will the BIOS do it's job with the newly installed HD without needing input from the old drive, for it to boot? I assume drivers will come with the new Maxtor HD, but are there others that I'll need to get things up and running?
This is on a friends computer, running Windows ME (if that helps?) which we want to change over to XP.
Is there a certain point when the XP disk should be put in on an empty drive, so that it will boot up? What is the procedure of "formatting" the new HD to accept Win XP?

Are there "jumpers" that will need to be set? I'm hoping there is a motherboard manual available, but there certainly is no guarantee of that, so any help will be appreciated.

I have installed a HD before in my own computer (a long time ago) but it was the slave HD that the bearing was going out on, so the transition was fairly simple if I remember it correctly.

Thanks in advance for any tips, advice & comments.

[glc]

SATA or IDE? If IDE, what's the computer or motherboard model? What drive is it replacing?

[Cricket]

Is there a hard and fast rule of thumb as to which hard drive gives you the best life over a period of time, over the others?No specific rules, but there are some brands that are recommended over other brands. Maxtor, Seagate and Western Digital are the "good" brand and Hitachi and Samsung are the "not so good" brands. I don't know enough about HP hard drives to comment on them yet.

Fujitsu hard drives are pretty good but they make mostly laptop and SCSI hard drives.Are any easier to install (if a PC owner wants to install his/her own) than another?IDE and SATA HDDs are pretty easy to install. SCSI is another matter.I just ordered a Maxtor 200 GB HD (best price at the moment) and I'm hoping the installation will go well.
My plan is to uninstall the current hard drive, add the new one, and install Windows XP on it (hoping that is easy to do) and then use the old HD as additional space. I will try and retrieve any needed data files, photo's, e-mail etc from this drive, and then reformat it for use as a secondary drive. (slave?)Sounds like a good plan.Is there a site that covers all the information one should be aware of in doing this type of install?
Click here. (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=How+to+install+a+hard+drive&btnG=Search)Will the BIOS do it's job with the newly installed HD without needing input from the old drive, for it to boot?The BIOS doesn't need a HDD to boot the computer. The computer will boot up and then it's up to you to enter the BIOS and make sure the new hard drive is recognized.I assume drivers will come with the new Maxtor HD, but are there others that I'll need to get things up and running?No drivers are necessary but if you get a retail HDD it will come with a CD with installation utilities on it.This is on a friends computer, running Windows ME (if that helps?) which we want to change over to XP.
Is there a certain point when the XP disk should be put in on an empty drive, so that it will boot up? What is the procedure of "formatting" the new HD to accept Win XP?After you start the computer with the new HDD installed, go into the BIOS and set the first boot device to the CD-ROM drive. Put the WinXP CD in the CD-ROM drive and Save and Exit the BIOS. The computer will reboot to the WinXP CD and the installer will take over. Follow the on-screen instructions.Are there "jumpers" that will need to be set?Depends on what type of HDD the new one is.

:) Cricket