View Full Version : Changing Hard drives...
sentee
April 6th, 2003, 03:02 AM
I would like to use a 20gb harddrive that my brother has laying around and swap it for the 2-3gb harddrive that I have... What are the procedures for doing this? Should I be concerned about the motherboard? And I would like to upgrade the memory with a Simms and a Dimms memory chip. I am running with 30mb of RAM presently. All suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Murf
April 6th, 2003, 05:12 AM
We cannot advise you without knowing what motherboard and type of system this is. You may have a BIOS limitation on the size of hard drive. If this is a name brand system, post the name and the model number.
Memory, again depends on the motherboard capability and maximum memory it will handle, and what type of memory.
Post as much info as you know about the system.
sentee
April 7th, 2003, 03:49 AM
It's a OEM as "Packard Bell", it's been a while now... I think it's model # is 820... , I purchased from Circuit City almost 5 yrs ago, and this User's Guide doesn't show a model number... when it's loading its says Cyrix MII-300, (it's MII X 86 Family 6 Model 0 Stepping 0)... with 30MB Ram... I was told it could be upgraded... and it's says Samsung SV0322Ato be a 3.2 GB hard drive... running in Windows 98... there are slots available... I upgraded the CD-Rom with a burner... that I don't use for burning cause I don't have a large hard drive... the drive I would be replacing it with is Western Digital Caviar 310200, enhanced IDE.
sentee
April 7th, 2003, 04:57 AM
I just thought about another option... keeping the new 20GB as a slave... and if it's safe to do this on the Packard Bell 820 (spec's are above)? I basically need more space... then I could format the new drive and keep it as the d: drive and move the cdrom to the e: drive... I just need to know if it's supportive of this type of change.
enat66
April 7th, 2003, 10:32 PM
I think it'd be easier to know the exact motherboard type...try downloading Aida32 (http://www.aida32.hu/aida32.php)
Murf
April 8th, 2003, 02:52 AM
Pacard Bell 810/820 Motherboard
RAM : 4MB (Max. 128MB)
The Motherboard has two DIMM sockets configured as two (0-1) banks. The system memory is upgradeable to 128MB. The 168-pin DIMM sockets will accept both 3.3V as well as 3.5V 1MBx64 (8MB), 2MBx64 (16MB), 4MBx64 (32MB), and 8MBx64 (64MB) fast page DRAM DIMM's or extended data out DRAM DIMM's with the recommended access speed of 60ns or faster. This motherboard will accept either single or double sided DIMM's. Memory type, size, and speed can vary between sockets. This motherboard will not accept 36 bit DIMM modules (parity). Due to the nature of the VX controller chipset, this motherboard will not support 128MB DIMM modules.
1 MBit Flash EPROM. System BIOS by Award. Video BIOS by S3.
It appears the BIOS should support that size drive and if your running Windows 98 there should not be a limitation.
Haven't been able to find a BIOS upgrade. But to find out, jumper the 20GB as a SLAVE and see if it is recognized...
Abremylin
April 9th, 2003, 03:07 AM
Your HD will not only work with the system you described you will get a decent use out of it. If you can work on uninstalling programs from the C: and reinstalling them routing it to the D: drive. Once fdisk and formatted the system will automatically reassign drive letters. Put the new drive on the same IDE chain (cable) as the old one. Make sure the old drive is set to cable select or master w/slave present. If you have boot problems it is a jumper on the HD's somewhere - or a cable issue, adjust and retry, you won't hurt anything. Be careful in FDISK... stay away from "delete partition". You should only be creating one.
Hope this helps... repost if I made four more questions arise.
sentee
April 12th, 2003, 05:03 AM
I didn't have a problem thanks to the advice from everyone. I was able to format the drive and use my Master CD to reinstall Windows 98. I am very pleased with the results. I found that it was a 9.54 GB HD. I have loaded every CD I own :) I even installed CD's to learn to speak Spanish. I would like to thank everyone, and I have been raving about this site to all my friend's. This site gets Two Thumbs Up, and den some! :)
enat66
April 12th, 2003, 04:04 PM
and I have been raving about this site to all my friend's.
That is the spirit...glad we could help!
Please do recommend this board.:)
Murf
April 12th, 2003, 04:10 PM
Thank you. Bring all your friends to the board, as that is what it is all about.
Gracias. Traiga a todos sus amigos a la tabla, cuando eso es lo que es todo acerca de.
Your first lesson.