Hard Drive Instalation

[Daniela]

I have Compaq Evo D3m/P1.5 Desktop PC. Hard drive is almost dead( have a lot of bad sectors which cant not be repair). I want to install new hard drive , so I have couple questions about that.
Can somebody tell me what kind of hard drive to buy. I don’t need large capacitaty, around 20Gb will be enough, but I’m not sure which kind of interface to buy IDE, ATA or SCSI. Also do I need to setup master / slave switchers or ant jumpers ? Can somebody give me basic steps how to install new drive ? I have never done this before.
Thanks
Daniela

[HyperTF]

Welcome to PCMech!
Firstly depending on where you are in this big world of ours finding a new 20GB drive might get tricky... It would help though if you could tell us any more about your computer (specifications) as this can be critical when making a decision like this.

Also you need to know what it will be used for... i.e. just work documents and the like or storing movies and or music, that sort of thing.

You might have luck finding a 40GB but here where I am 80GB seems to be the standard minimum size now. Once again it depends on your machine and its requirements.

Usually the drive will be assumed and set for master though if you are using a cable select cable (having three colours Black, blue and grey) this is a different story. Edit: and I am referring to using standard EIDE drive which it sounds like be the cheapest option, which will do the job for you.

Edit2: Also I guess I was wondering mainly with your specs which Operating System you were going to install on this new drive?

[rjfvillarosa]

Welcome to PCMech.
As TF says finding a small hard drive like that may be a little difficult.
Please can you tell me
1 what operating system do you have?
2 do you intend to reinstall the operating sysytem to the new drive?
3 if yes to 2 do you intend keeping the old drive as a slave for as long as it keeps working?
4 what CD's do you have for your computer?

[Daniela]

Well it is for office workstation, we have file system so because that I don’t need large storage capacity. Will be used mostly for web searching and email. I have budget of up to $60-$70. Can I find by this price (20 or 40 GB).

Old hard drive have win98, but I also have license to install win2000( it is from Dell's PC which is not in use, will work on Compaq machine?) I don’t plan to keep old HD as slave.
Can you provide and step by step installation?

P.S. When I go to device manager I have:
On “Disk Drives: : Generic IDE Disk Type01
On Hard Disk Controllers:
Intel® 82801 BA Ultra ATA Storage controller-244B
Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
This “ultra ATA Storage controller” make confusion to me .
This mean that is IDE?
Thanks a lot for your help
Daniela

[rjfvillarosa]

Just two more questions before you order/start to change the hard drive.
1 Do you need to keep any of the information on the old hard drive?
2 What country are you living in? (this will help us to point you in the direction of a supplier for the hard drive)

[Daniela]

No I don’t need any information from old disk, I just want to be available for new employee. And I’m living in Chicago (USA). ( Originally I’m from Macedonia, Europe and English is my second language, so because that I’m making a lot of typos J.
Thanks
Daniela

[rjfvillarosa]

Your English is fine don't worry, I am sure it's better than my Spanish and thats all they talk here where I live.
Are you OK shopping online with a credit card or would you prefer to go to a store?
Here is a link to a good Seagate drive on sale at Eaglecomputer,
http://www.saveateagle.com/seag30ud542m.html
Have a look around alot of people here on the forum are big fans of www.newegg.com I just tried newegg and that Seagate hard drive is about $10 dearer with newegg.
I always try a few places I dont believe that one supplier is ALWAYS cheaper than the others.

glc has listed a very good drive in the next post.

[glc]

The Dell copy of Windows 2000 will not install, it will only install on a Dell, it is keyed to the bios. If the Compaq came with Windows 98, it should have come with a restore disk, you should simply have to swap hard drives, and boot with the restore disk. Most likely, you should set the drive jumper to Cable Select, most drives come with the jumper already in that position.

Here is a drive that is within your budget and it has a 5 year warranty:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...148-013&depa=0

[Daniela]

Doesn’t matter, if shipping is not too high and online is fine

[Daniela]

Thanks glc, this is very helpful info. I didn’t know that about OS’s. First thing that I was planning to do after purchase, was to try to install win2000.

[rjfvillarosa]

Do you have any of the original disk's for that machine?

[Daniela]

I have two of them “Compaq Operating system CD-W98 SE” and “Compaq Restore CD”

[glc]

The Compaq Restore CD should do the job fine for you unless Compaq is up to their old tricks of putting a hidden signature on their hard drives that must be there before the drive will install. If this is the case, you will have to find a generic copy of Win98SE, it can legally be installed using the Compaq license even if the disk "belongs" to another computer. This will require you to download necessary drivers from Compaq.

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by Daniela I have Compaq Evo D3m/P1.5 Desktop PC. Hard drive is almost dead (have a lot of bad sectors which can't be repaired). I want to install new hard drive , so I have couple questions about that. Can somebody tell me what kind of hard drive to buy. I don’t need large capacity, around 20Gb will be enough, but I’m not sure which kind of interface to buy IDE, ATA or SCSI.

ATA and "EIDE" are the same thing, and the packaging at the Best Buy, CompUSA, Office Depot, etc will show "ATA" on it. That is what you will want.

Also do I need to setup master / slave switchers or ant jumpers ? Can somebody give me basic steps how to install new drive ?

Right out of the box, it should already be set to run correctly as a straight replacement drive. You shouldn't have any need to touch the jumper.

The stores that do have smaller (than about 80 GB's) hard drives to sell have them priced pretty high for their relatively smaller sizes, but I have seen 30 GB and 40 GB drives being sold this week at retail stores here in Texas. And the price was in that $70 area (even though right next to them were 80's and 120's being sold with Rebate Offers bringing their prices down to $40 when the rebate is paid).

Unplug the power cable before anything else. You must then remove both side panels from the system to unscrew two screws on each side of the hard drive, and unplug the power cable and the ATA Bus Cable. Then pull it out of the drive bay for disposal. I often run my first tests with the system lying down on its side and the new piece of hardware connected, but only loosely lying atop the chassis, just in case I ended up with one of the rare "DOA" items.

If you follow my personal procedures, it is now time to re-attach the power cable and start the system. I will take you though using a PC BIOS that requires a "manual" choice to run the drive ID function. If that Compaq Evo is more modern, it may be redundant, but I haven't had much experience with any Compaqs in the last 7-8 years or so.

To reach the BIOS, you are supposed to press a particular key during the initial start-up, in between what is called a "POST" and the moment that the system starts trying to load an Operating System from a drive. There is usually a screen of information that describes the system that pops on screen for a few seconds, followed by the line "Press Del to Run Setup" (Or "Press F2 to Run Setup" -- the actual key varies from one make to another).

Most folks don't react fast enough when they see that instruction; and since it's a blank HDD, it's an "Invalid Disk" or some such error message. Just reboot and have your finger tapping repeatedly on the correct key during the start-up, and you'll normally get setup to start for you. Then you have to look up two pages in the setup. One is where you tell the CMOS to look at the new drive and identify it. If you find it's already done when you get there, that Compaq has a fairly modern BIOS.

Press ESC to get back to the contents page. The other page you need to go to is where you choose the boot-up sequence; you need to have the CD be first, and that normally requires a change. Press the ESC key once to get back to the contents page and find the "Save setup and exit" choice, and use that. If you have a bootable Win-OS disk in the CD, the install should start after that.

You can go ahead and run the entire install with the drive just lying on the PC, or after verifying that the install will run, you can abort and finish inserting the drive into place, and screwing it down, before doing so. If you choose to hard-mount first, I would still leave the left side of the case unlatched "just in case". It won't hurt a thing.