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General discussion

old computer new harddrive?

Dec 16, 2004 7:25AM PST

I have an old amd 300 mghz computer. I believe it had a something something ide dma??-33 type hard-drive. The bios is old so I remember it could only handle up to 30 gigs or something.

I want to get it a new hard-drive. What type would be compatible with it? I hope I provided enough info.

thanks,
dano

Discussion is locked

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Get a HD kit
Dec 16, 2004 7:45AM PST

Visit either WD or Maxtor for the details. It should include a larger HD, some h/w and s/w but more importantly a new controller to handle the large HD. -OR- update the bios for any possible newer HD (LBA) option feature and/or replace the bios itself for similar action. Check website: http://www.badflash.com for bios replacement upgrade.

good luck Happy -----Willy

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(NT) (NT) OR buy a used system with better abilities
Dec 16, 2004 7:46AM PST
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You can pick up two or three 30GB drives
Dec 16, 2004 7:48AM PST

pretty inexpensively right now just about anywhere on the net and daisy chain them (two on the primary IDE and one on the Secondary with your cdrom), and still get the 90GB 'service' you would get from one huge newer drive that would require ezdrive software installed on it ahead of time to get the bios to see the whole thing. Ezdrive is a bear in that if you wanted to move that drive to a slave position later on a newer drive it wouldn't be seen by windows until you then install ezdrive to the new boot harddrive on that system (or remove ezdrive completely from it).

If I were you, I would go the three drive route (or two or just one). Maxtor bought out Quantum a while back, but they are both still good drives, Seagate, and Western Digital are the best buys and the most reliable. I would steer clear of IBM because they had problems with one series of their drives and 30GB falls into that category.....not by series but by size....and I would be leery of getting something that some unreliable vendor on the net changed labels on to get rid of them.

TONI