How to replace a hard drive?

X5Jay · #1 10-18-2006, 10:06 AM

I have a 5 or 6 year-old Gateway PC and the hard drive is beginning to get really noisy and sick sounding. I'm not seeing any ill-effects, but it sure sounds like it's on its last days....

How difficult and time-consuming is it to replace the hard drive myself? While I use a computer all day, every day for work, I'm certainly no IT guy, but I'm not afraid to open up the box and do the mechanical work - that part seems easy. However, I'm concerned that I don't have the skills to replace the drive, OS, programs, data, etc... Given that my current hard drive is not yet dead, does that make it any easier? Any advice or simple how-to instructions that a novice like me can handle, or should I just throw in the towel and get a professional to do it? TIA!

Edit: BTW - it's a desktop with a giant tower, not a laptop...

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LVR · #2 10-18-2006, 10:22 AM

Not hard, but depends on all the other specs as to whether it is worth it eg type of board/ram etc as you will surely want that newest go fast gear.

I took the easy way out and went and bought a whole new tower only with monster graphics card, DVD writer, massive amount of memory and all the latest specs for $400 minus WinXP (as I had my own) and no software other than boot. It was then a simple matter to just re-install all my old programs.

Either way, back up/export all your internet/email and files to an external hard drive asap while you can. That way all your settings/addresses etc aren't lost like a colleague of mines' who was down for a week trrying to recover lost info on (you guessed it) a Gateway PC.

SuaveX5 · #3 10-18-2006, 10:29 AM

It is very easy, a new fresh OS and program install is good but if you want to keep everything as is you can clone your old drive, Norton Ghost is a good program if you want to upgrade your hardrive and keep everthing they way it is on the old drive.

GUINNESS · #4 10-18-2006, 10:30 AM

5 or 6 yr old Gateway.... buy a new computer. If that's not an option, it is SIMPLE to replace a hard drive as long as you have a copy of the OS you want to run. Took me about 2 hours to install a new hard drive and Win XP, add all support packs, install Office and packs, hook old drive up as a slave, and transfer data from one to the other.

One thing to keep in mind is your BIOS and OS will determine the size drive you can get. Keep an eye on salescircular.com. I picked up a 150GB drive for $30 or $40 after rebates... set 20 - 30GB for the C:\ and the rest for data... but you'll need XP SP2 to be able to do that. Again, 5 - 6yr old Gateway (sucks ass), just get a new one.

Thunder22 · #5 10-18-2006, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by X5Jay

I have a 5 or 6 year-old Gateway PC and the hard drive is beginning to get really noisy and sick sounding. I'm not seeing any ill-effects, but it sure sounds like it's on its last days....

How difficult and time-consuming is it to replace the hard drive myself? While I use a computer all day, every day for work, I'm certainly no IT guy, but I'm not afraid to open up the box and do the mechanical work - that part seems easy. However, I'm concerned that I don't have the skills to replace the drive, OS, programs, data, etc... Given that my current hard drive is not yet dead, does that make it any easier? Any advice or simple how-to instructions that a novice like me can handle, or should I just throw in the towel and get a professional to do it? TIA!

Edit: BTW - it's a desktop with a giant tower, not a laptop...

jay,

From a process standpoint, it's easy to physically replace the drive. the hard part is getting your applications reinstalled on it and your data moved back onto it from the original disk.

You also have to check with the manufacturer and see what type of drive is supported in the machine, IDE, SATA, ATA, PATA, EIDE, SCSI, etc. and buy the same type of drive.

You also have to check to see what the largest sized drive is supported. There's no use in buying a big fat 250GB SATA drive, if the BIOS on your machine will only support 80GB IDE drives.

You also have to have some experience in knowing how to set up a master drive vs. a slave (not tough, but the first time could be a bitch) and checking to see if you have a multi-port drive cable in the machine and/or a free power cable (you'll need to have both hard drives plugged in at the same time in order to copy from 1 to the other unless you have an external USB case you plug the original disk into).

That being said.

Buy a new machine, buy an external USB case for your old machine's HD and copy your data from 1 to the other. I think that's your biggest bang for the buck and most straightforward in terms of upgrading.

SuaveX5 · #6 10-18-2006, 11:15 AM

like the other said , you need to check the largest sized drive that is supported by your bios, but if the limitations is a problem for you and your machine has a PCI slot you can buy a hardrive with a pci controller card and that will solve your bios limitation problem.

oh and like the others said , if you can judt buy a new Machine

X5Jay · #7 10-18-2006, 04:42 PM

Thanks for the help everyone! I really don't think I need a new machine. The current hard drive is 120gb and if that's the highest I can go, that'll be fine. It's also got a gig of memory and a decent processor speed (I forget, I think it's around 2.8 or so). What really would I gain buy going new?

Thunder22 · #8 10-18-2006, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by X5Jay

Thanks for the help everyone! I really don't think I need a new machine. The current hard drive is 120gb and if that's the highest I can go, that'll be fine. It's also got a gig of memory and a decent processor speed (I forget, I think it's around 2.8 or so). What really would I gain buy going new?

any machine that is 5-6 years old can't have a 2.8GHz processor

JonK · #9 10-18-2006, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuaveX5

It is very easy, a new fresh OS and program install is good but if you want to keep everything as is you can clone your old drive, Norton Ghost is a good program if you want to upgrade your hardrive and keep everthing they way it is on the old drive.