The hard drive in my Dimension 2400 has recently been making a LOT of noise and I would like to replace it (before it breaks and I lose all memory) with a store bought unit. The existing hard drive is a 40gig Seagate using an IDE interface I believe and the unit I'm interested in buying is a Maxtor 200gig that is labeled as having an IDE/ATA interface. I know nothing of ATA(SATA) and whether or not it is interchangable with IDE. I have also found out that the floppy drive on my computer doesn't seem to be working so that may change things when installing the new drive. The CDROM is working fine though. I would also like to avoid paying a tech $60 dollars to copy the old drive onto the new one (which would simplifiy things greatly I think). It seems like I should be able to do this myself as I've done it before on systems that I have built myself.
What is the process for installing a new drive on a Dell? I have researched trying to create a system/recovery disk and I can't figure out how to do it on this system. I also can't seem to figure out how to get into CMOS/config software. Is there an online manual (or printed one) that is available? I am currently running Windows XP home edition with 512MB SDRAM at 333mhz. My owners manual also says nothing about replacing or adding hard drives.
Thanx for all the help,
Robert
In the future, by using the Advanced Forum Search on the bottom of this page, you can quite easily find the answer to this often asked question.
Don't buy a MAXTOR, high failure rates.
You can copy old to new with the new drive manufacturer's software.
You can't make an OS disk from your hard drive.
Bios is F2 on startup, click on the Technical Support tab above, then Manuals, for your documentation.
rickmktg
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December 4th, 2006 18:00