Hi, I was told I had to replace my hard drive, it was about to fail.
We went out and bought a 160GB hard drive, then we were told that our computer may not be compatible with it, I called the help line for the computer and he told me that the computer I have can only have an 80GB hard drive to replace it. He said that the 160GB will not be compatible. Is this true?? How can I upgrade my hard drive?? If I install the 160GB hard drive will my computer still function?? Will I have more disk space or will the computer only use 80 of the 160GB's??
80GB was what originally came with the computer.

We also want to put in some more memory, right now we only have 256MB we wanted to upgrade to 1GB of memory. Is it possible to do a memory upgrade when we are told that the hard drive should only be 80GB's?? Or will this all be just a waste of money??

Thanks in advance for your help!!

we need to know more about your computer.
what version of windows
make and model and serial number of computer

It's a windows XP home edition, desktop, model SR1503WM, Serial CNH525258J

Thanks!!

who made it? dell, hp, home build, etc.

Hi "IknowNothing".
Looks like that is a Compaq Pressario. Regardless, if you manage to run Windows XP on it then it must be fairly recent.
Check out this HP website http://tinyurl.com/62dker for instructions on how to replace the HDD (hard disk drive). I do not believe you will have a problem with any drive larger than 80GB, but do check to ensure you have the latest BIOS versions http://tinyurl.com/6g2yts.

Here's my tips.

a) Find out if your current HDD is IDE or S-ATA
b) Buy your 160GB HDD of the same type
c) Buy an external HDD enclosure with USB or FireWire (IEEE 1394) that supports your new HDD
d) Find disk imaging (cloning) software like Norton Ghost or Acronis TrueImage
e) Install the HDD into the external enclosure, connect it to your PC and run the cloning software - clone your current 80GB HDD to the new HDD
f) Once the clone is done turn the system off, remove the new HDD from the enclosure, open up your Compaq and replace your 80GB HDD with the new one (make sure the jumpers on the new HDD match [master/slave/cable select] your old 80GB HDD).

Now when you power up your Compaq you will have a brand new HDD with all your programs, data and settings just like they were.

Depending on the cloning software you may have to find a Partition application that will let you expand the partition. Some cloning operations will create an 80GB partition on the new 160GB HDD. You can either use (format) the other 80GB and make it a new drive letter, or use a Partitioning application to enlarge the 80GB partition to fill the entire 160GB drive.

Finally, yes buy more memory (RAM). See HP's page here: http://tinyurl.com/68gepd. Running XP on only 256MB makes it slower than a snail. Check your system and see what type of RAM (DIMMs) it uses. You will see a major performance increase by upgrading to 512MB, and even more if you go to 1GB. My opinion is that for this type of system you do not need more than 1GB.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

ronald.

looks like this is the memory config.
Compaq Presario SR1503WM Memory
Maximum Memory 2GB
Memory Slots 2 (2 banks of 1)
DDR 2700 is original memory speed

to go to 1 gig the 256 meg dimm (memory card) will need removed and install 2 x 512 meg dimm or 1 x 1 **gig** dimm

Wow Surfer, living on the cutting edge with 1 x 1 MB DIMM...

I know 't was a typo... Still, funny...

IknowNothing: Surfer found the right memory for you - your system uses PC2700 DIMMs and has two slots. You can either buy one 256MB DIMM and add it to get to 512MB, or replace your single 256MB with 2x 512MB and go to 1GB. Your choice depending on cost and availability. I think you have a Celeron CPU in that model, 512MB will already be a big improvement. Going to 1GB may not give you much extra but it depends on what you use the computer for. Games and video/graphics applications will always use the extra memory. For just email, word processing and the occasional game 512MB should suffice.

ronald.

y'all're right that is funny but then i remember the day..........

Thanks everyone!!

Rknol, I was understanding everything until you got to the cloning part, then my head started spinning. I will go to the help sites you recommended.

Surfer: Yeah I remember the days too. I upgraded my Sinclair Spectrum from 16K to 48K all by myself. Yes, that's KB, not MB...

IknowNothing: I'm sorry I made your head spin... Feel free to ask more details, it never hurts to ask questions. My cloning part was more than 2/3rd of the post, I hope you got at least halfway down...

most hard drives have cloning software. if it's not packaged with the drive y'all can find it for download at the manufacturers web site.

Don't worry about making my head spin, it's just that I was hoping your reply would say to just install the 160 hard drive and thats it. I am clueless to cloning and so is my husband. We are just learning about computers, the only thing I know is how to turn them on and go online or email family, other than that, I am clueless, so when you mentioned cloning it sent me for a loop!!! It just seems a little too advanced for us.

I think my husband is going to return the 160 and try to buy an 80 (if they even sell them) and just do some memory upgrades.

hi ikn
the hard drive change will be no different with an 80 or with a 160. in either case windows (the Operating System) will need to be reinstalled. cloning is a way to move entire contents of the old hard drive to the new hard drive.

be aware that there are 2 types of packaging for hard drives.
1. OEM, Original Equipment Manufacturer, that is just a hard drive. nothing more.
2. Retail, comes with data cables, software, and instruction for setup and in most cases cloning from old drive to new drive.
for you i'd strongly suggest a retail package. check out the instructions and if you decide to try we'll get you through. if y'all decide it's too much then i'd have to suggest y'all take the computer to a local computer technician.

good luck and let us know.
wes

"the hard drive change will be no different with an 80 or with a 160"


I am sorry if I sound dumb......but what do you mean that it will be no different?? Do you mean to install it?? I was under the impression that a 160 would not be compatible with our computer and therefore a waste of money. We really don't need to clone the old hard drive, I am assuming that cloning will give me all the info I have currently on this hard drive, the reason I say we don't really need to clone, is because we have no real info to save, we use the computer to email friends/family and to read the paper, get info, stuff like that, all my pictures and things are on CD's. We have made recovery discs for the windows.

We were told by a friend that if your computer has an 80 hard drive you must replace it with an 80 or else the computer won't function right, we called HP and they pretty much told us the same thing, they said that our computer is only compatible with an 80 and therefore we would have to replace it with an 80. My husband had read somewhere about partitioning a larger hard drive to fit and we were wondering what we need to do to install the 160 we bought, he knows how to install it, but the main question is will it work with our computer?? Or will our computer only use 80 of the 160??

Putting it into easier terms, if you have a computer with an 80 hard drive, would you install a 160?? Why would you need/want a larger hard drive? What goes on the hard drive?? Would you be happy with an 80 and spend the money to install more memory?? Would that be something smart?? I was trying to make sense of it today and I asked my husband, if we have an 80 hard drive and 1GB of memory isn't that good for me to store/edit pictures on?? What benefit is there to having a larger hard drive?? What exactly does a hard drive have on it?? Isn't it better to have more memory???

Sorry for so many questions, I hope I am making sense!!

Thanks again!!!

I’ll try to answer some of your questions until Surfer get back to you; first, I’m not sure as to why these people told you that your hard drive will be incompatible with your computer? Did they give a reason as to why or why not? Second, I’d say that the best way to find out if it’s working or not is to hook it up to your computer, and then run the Windows XP installation CD; it should see your hard drive and gives you an option to partition it, in which case you can use the entire capacity of 160 GB or just use 80 GB for Windows installation and the other 80 GB can be used as a second partition so that when you’re done with Windows installation you’ll see that you have two partitions instead of one (C:\ and D:\).

Now to answer some of your questions:

Putting it into easier terms, if you have a computer with an 80 hard drive, would you install a 160??
*Yes, I don’t see why not.

Why would you need/want a larger hard drive?
*Some people install a lot of programs, create documents, edit videos, store files, and do all kinds of things on their computers therefore needing a lot of hard drive space.

What goes on the hard drive??
*Your operating system, your installed program, and any other thing that you may store on it (documents, pictures, and so on).

Would you be happy with an 80 and spend the money to install more memory??
*That depends on how much space you need to use; some people are happy with this amount while others need ten times or more this amount. As for memory it’s always a good thing to have a lot of memory in your computer, and I see that you are already looking to have 1 GB which is good in your situation.

Would that be something smart??
*Yes it is, considering that you know exactly what you need.

I was trying to make sense of it today and I asked my husband, if we have an 80 hard drive and 1GB of memory isn't that good for me to store/edit pictures on??
*That depends on how many pictures you want to store on this hard drive, but in general I’d say it’s better if you don’t keep anything important on your hard drive in case your system crashes. So an 80 GB hard drive should be good for you, provided that you don’t use it for storage.

What benefit is there to having a larger hard drive??
*As I mentioned before, some people need large hard drives for different reasons, storage, running certain programs, and doing some extensive work on their computers among other things.

What exactly does a hard drive have on it??
*Files and folders mostly.

Isn't it better to have more memory???
*Yes it is.

Thanks Dino!!! I'm now beginning to make sense of all this!!

So, when we install the 160, it's going to give us the option to partition it......we need to partition it to use the full 160.......right?? We don't have a Windows XP installation CD, we only have the recovery discs that re-installs the windows xp. (I have called HP to get a windows cd and I was told that they do not have a windows xp cd, they sell the recovery discs that has the windows xp on it, we already have the recovery discs so we didn't need to purchase more.) So when we put in the new hard drive we will then put in the recovery cds, will it still let me partition it?? Is there a site that explains partitioning??

The HP people told us "You have an 80, you must replace with an 80, your computer will not be compatible with anything but an 80" I asked him what he means by compatible, he said, "It's not going to let you run the computer on anything but an 80".........I don't know if he was telling us this to make us buy an 80 from them, but it scared us, as we do not have the money to waste, we bought the hard drive at Best Buy and they said if we run it, we can not return it, so we want to make sure it will be compatible before we install it.

Thanks so much for your help!!!

yes, if you use recovery discs then you'll need to replace with an 80 gig. i guess we should have asked, sorry for the confusion, or as we say in kansas, "cornfusion".

You can still put a 160GB drive into the system, but the Recovery Disc procedure will likely partition and format only 80GB of it.
This means that the other 80GB is unused (but you could make that your D: or E: drive).

I am 90% sure that the Recovery Disc procedure does not care if the HDD is 80GB or more. It will still work, it might just not use the extra capacity.

So it comes down to this: if you can find/buy an 80GB HDD then go ahead. If you find a larger HDD for less money, don't hesitate and get it.
As long as you are sure you do not need to keep any of your computer's settings (email setup, favorites etc) then use the Recovery Discs.

Good luck!

ronald.

OK...........we couldn't find an 80 so we kept the 160 and installed it, it automatically partitioned it 144 on the C drive and the rest on the D drive.........it seems to be working fine EXCEPT that when we try to hibernate the computer it will restart itself, and sometimes when we turn off the computer completely it will turn itself back on............what the heck did we do wrong???? How can we fix this???

Once again, thank you in advance!!!

those settings can be found 3 ways.

open Control Panel
open Power Options
set your preferences
click Apply
click OK

or

click start
click run
type: powercfg.cpl
click OK
set preferences
click Apply
click OK

or

right click an empty spot on the windows desktop.
left click Properties from the menu.
left click Screen Saver tab.
left click Power Button
set your preferences.
click the Apply button
click OK out.

One final note before this thread expires...

A 160GB disk is not 160GB.

I don't know why manufacturers do not used "base 2" math, but my guess is the way they do it today the drive sounds bigger than it really is, so it must sell better.

A 160GB drive holds 160,000,000,000 bytes.

Dividing by 1024 (not 1000) that is really 156,250,000 KB, which is 152,587 MB or 149GB.

You're only getting 93% of the advertised capacity!!!

After you format the drive (e.g. in Windows using NTFS) you are left with even less (due to filesystem overhead), so I am not surprised that a store bought 160GB drive gives you only 144GB effective in Windows.

Just remember that when you buy a drive, after you install and format it you'll only get around 93% of the 'sticker capacity'.

I wish the vendors would start using 'real math' so that what you buy is what you get. I know that some filesystems have different overhead but still, at least advertise "unformatted capacity" in proper GB numbers.

<rant done>

ronald.