pc hard drive question
 

the hard drive in my knackered old Dell lap top is on its way out.

to replace it, do i have to use a dell hard drive or can i use another brand?
i'm assuming it is not a complicated job, or am i wrong on that?

it's a dell inspiron 2500, about 5 yrs old. just need to get a couple months more life out of it.......

cheers

You should be able to replace it with any brand as long as it's the right size (ie 2.5") and has the correct connector (IDE I assume). If your machine is a bit old it might not take large modern drive as the BIOS may have a limitation on the size it can address. To swap it, you'll have to copy everything off the drive & then re-install the OS onto the new drive, assuming you have the original disks

What's the capacity of the existing drive, and what's wrong with it ?

As above... whats wrong with it? And how big is the HD.

thanks guys - Simon, PM on its way.
Will

I am sure the lads will put you wide, but, even within the IDE type drives, there are sub-divisions. S-ATA, U-ATA, ordinary bog standrd IDE, I dunno. More maybe.

If you have a PCI slot, you can pick up a card to plug onto the mother board, and you can run SATA, very quick. Otherwise just be careful you get the right type of IDE connector.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, You know what's cool about Linux? It tells you when the drive is pegging out, and how far gone it is. Sweet.

its a laptop.. he wont have a PCI slot.

Doh. RTFA next time Maccers.