Can I use any hard drive for my desktop?

[Pum]

I'm getting a new hard drive for my desktop, so I was wondering can I buy any pro one and it's ready to go?

I've been googling and I've seen all these things like SATA and RAID and IDE and to be honest I have no idea what they are, so some clarification would be handy. How do I find out if I need a 2.5 inch or 3.5 inch hard drive? Also, will I have to buy a new OS?

Thanks.

[haxartus]

You generally need 3.5 inch SATA II/III 7200 RPM hard drive for a desktop.
What is the motherboard and the budget for the hard drive ?

[Schadow]

Okay, listen up as I will tell you this only once!

I hope you know how you can open your case. If you do, great! Open the side panel where you see all the wires. Now tell me which one you can see out of the following two:



or



Basically, that is the only difference. As a newb (Read: newb, not n00b), you shouldn't know what a RAID does, it's more complex and it's not a physical hard drive.

5400 RPM or 7200 RPM doesn't make a difference either much, 5400 RPM is the standard and you should aim for that tbh.

The first picture is IDE and the second picture is SATA.

Edit: also, what I would like to know is if you are going to place a new hard drive extra on top of your current one or are you gonna replace the current one? If you do the first, you won't have to re-install your OS. All you gotta do is format it and Windows asks you to do that when you double click on it (there is most of the time also a manual when you buy a new Hard Drive at a store). If it is the latter, then yes, you gotta re-install Windows.

[Backreaper]

Your desktop will need a 3.5 inch hard drive, 2.5 inch is generally used for laptops. you can ut a 2.5 inch hard drive in your computer but it's easier to just go for a 3.5"

RAID is something you won't be dealing with as it's used for 2 hard drives or more.

now for the fun part: SATA and IDE
older pc's use the IDE connection(i'm talking 90's old) while newer pc's use SATA, how do you find out? by opening your computer,

when you open your computer you will see something like this, the top one is IDE and the bottem one is SATA, simply look for which one you have.

as for the OS you will have to instal a new one, if you still have a CD for windows you can simply use that one, you can transfer all the data from your old hard drive to your new one but i'm not 100% sure how your suposed to do that.

[Pum]

Okay, listen up as I will tell you this only once!

I hope you know how you can open your case. If you do, great! Open the side panel where you see all the wires. Now tell me which one you can see out of the following two:



or



Basically, that is the only difference. As a newb (Read: newb, not n00b), you shouldn't know what a RAID does, it's more complex and it's not a physical hard drive.

5400 RPM or 7200 RPM doesn't make a difference either much, 5400 RPM is the standard and you should aim for that tbh.

The first picture is IDE and the second picture is SATA.

Edit: also, what I would like to know is if you are going to place a new hard drive extra on top of your current one or are you gonna replace the current one? If you do the first, you won't have to re-install your OS. All you gotta do is format it and Windows asks you to do that when you double click on it (there is most of the time also a manual when you buy a new Hard Drive at a store). If it is the latter, then yes, you gotta re-install Windows.

Yeah in that case it's SATA. And I'm replacing my hard drive as my previous one is kaput.

[haxartus]

What is the motherboard ? Or at least how old is the PC ?

[Asmekiel]

Yeah in that case it's SATA. And I'm replacing my hard drive as my previous one is kaput.

In that case: Spinpoint F3
Re-install Windows and activate it. If it doesn't want to activate, call Microsoft and tell them you reinstalled Windows and for some reason won't activate.

You don't want a 5400RPM HDD for your OS. It's slow and generally used for storage.

[lockblock]

In that case: Spinpoint F3
Re-install Windows and activate it. If it doesn't want to activate, call Microsoft and tell them you reinstalled Windows and for some reason won't activate.

You don't want a 5400RPM HDD for your OS. It's slow and generally used for storage.

highly unlikely that a hdd swap would be a big enough change to cause it to fail activation
but yeah you have the option to call them and fix it

[Pum]

In that case: Spinpoint F3
Re-install Windows and activate it. If it doesn't want to activate, call Microsoft and tell them you reinstalled Windows and for some reason won't activate.

You don't want a 5400RPM HDD for your OS. It's slow and generally used for storage.

Was considering getting a Western Cavalier one, but looking at the reviews on Newegg.. I think I'll pass. I think I'll get this Samsung one, thanks for the suggestion.

There is currently no hard drive in my computer, so I'm going to have to buy a new OS

[Schadow]

Was considering getting a Western Cavalier one, but looking at the reviews on Newegg.. I think I'll pass. I think I'll get this Samsung one, thanks for the suggestion.

There is currently no hard drive in my computer, so I'm going to have to buy a new OS

...buy?

if I recall correctly, you probably have the license key of Microsoft on your PC if you bought it. Download (YES, THAT'S LEGAL MOFO'S!) the Windows that corresponds with the key, install it and use said key.

It probably looks like this:

[Zkeya]

Was considering getting a Western Cavalier one, but looking at the reviews on Newegg.. I think I'll pass. I think I'll get this Samsung one, thanks for the suggestion.

There is currently no hard drive in my computer, so I'm going to have to buy a new OS

Western Digital Caviar black series are probably the best 7200RPM HDDs. Samsung Spinpoint F3 is pretty close in performance and cheaper.
And you won't have to buy a new OS, just install the version of windows you had from the CD and enter the same activation key.