new harddrive

[Apclps]

I've got an old compaq pentium 2 lying around the house and it is in great need of a new harddrive.

Right now it has a 6 gigabyte disk in it and I was wondering if an old PC like that would be able to take the newer harddrives. The cheapest and slowest harddrive you can get in the store these days is 40 gigs.

I would be more than happy with those 40 gigs but having heard that compaq isn't really compatible with a lot of things, I kinda need to know if it would work or not. Especially since I'm just a student on a small budget and don't want to risk buying useless stuff.

thanks for any advice or help!

 

[toyomatt84]

Believe it or not, you can definitely find a 40 or 60 gig drive for it. The best prices usually are on ebay, but talk to a local computer shop on the adaptation to the older processor. I don't forsee any prob.s but check out what they might have to say.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Faster drives are generally quite happy to slow down for a slower interface, but I've had problems connecting older drives to newer computers with faster interfaces. Your Compaq PII probably has an IDE ADA-33Mhz interface, whereas the latest drives are set up for Ultra-ADA-100Mhz interfaces

Like I say, it shouldn't be a massive problem for you. You could search for the model number on the HP/Compaq web site (www.hp.com/go/support), as they usually have some quite detailed engineering information.

 

[TurboSmoke]

you may want to check if your bios will support a large hdd...some wont but you can always get you bios flashed in order to accomidate bigger drives, i had to do that a few years back with an old P1 200MHz (which i still ocasionally use) it has a 10 gig hdd...you local computer shop should help you...

 

[Flerbizky]

With a PII box I doubt anything smaller than 133Gb will be a problem. The 4-6-8Gig limitations were removed during the Pentium era...

 

[Race Idiot]

Originally posted by Flerbizky
With a PII box I doubt anything smaller than 133Gb will be a problem. The 4-6-8Gig limitations were removed during the Pentium era...

Meh, I tried installing a 120gb drive on a PIII Slot 1 motherboard once. It only recognised it when I clipped it to 36gb and there was no bios update for it. Although the same drive works in my IBM, which is about a year or two older. Some motherboards are teh suck.

 

[Flerbizky]

Originally posted by Race Idiot
Meh, I tried installing a 120gb drive on a PIII Slot 1 motherboard once. It only recognised it when I clipped it to 36gb and there was no bios update for it. Although the same drive works in my IBM, which is about a year or two older. Some motherboards are teh suck.

We have several Compaq PII's here at work which I've had both 60 and 80 gig disks in with no problem...

What kinda Mobo was it ?.....

 

[Race Idiot]

Some crappy make, Tyan maybe?

I found a bios update for the board, but all it did was something to do with the USB supportin some scanner or something. And that update on the site was from 1999. I ended up removing the motherboard and practically built him a new system (Barring a few things).

 

[Apclps]

thanks guys, i'll check it out tomorrow!