Hard Drive Crashed

Question

I hope someone will be able to help.  I have a Dimension 4100 and my hard drive crashed the other day.  I took the hard drive out cleaned the machine hoping that mite help, but of course no.  Now I am going to buy a new hard drive, but I do not know what to buy, how much the cost, should I upgrade the hard drive at this time. Computer is 5 years old.  When it was ordered I had some upgrades installed.  Any advise would be appreciated.    Thanks SunshineEyes

osprey4 · Answer

This is not a big problem. Your system will support any drive under 137 GB as is. What you need is an ATA-100, also referred to as IDE, internal hard drive. Seagate seems to be the best regarded brand because they offer the longest warranty, but in a 5-yr-old system, a 5-yr warranty is not too critical.

My suggestion is to check your Sunday newspaper for local deals. Stores like Staples, CompUSA, Best Buy, Office Depot, etc. are the best place to find hard drive bargains. An 80 or 120-GB drive should cost less than $50.

Please mention what version of Windows you're using and I can provide a link to your reinstallation guide.

Ceri, you beat me by two minutes.

Message Edited by osprey4 on 02-18-2006 01:06 PM

SunshineEyes · Answer

Thanks for the advise. The system is Windows 2000. When I ordered the computer I also ordered it with network capability, Pentium III processor at 1 GHzRootics V.90/56K PCI, Telephone Modem, 32MB DDR nVidia GeForce2 Graphic Card, Soundblaster 64v PCI Sound card, Floppy Drive, DVD, CDRW, drives, 256MB SDRAM at 133 MHz. I do a lot of graphic programs on it. Will I need to upgrade any things else.

Keep the advise coming

ceri sheeran · Answer

Hi,

Max out the memory to an absolute maximum of 512mb in two 256MB sticks.

Upgrade the video card to at least 64MB or even 128mb.

Don't spend a great deal more though as the machine is tool old and slow to warrant spending more.

hth

Ceri

ceri sheeran · Answer

Hi,

You D4100 probably came with Win 98 SE or ME. It will run XP without any problems if you max out the memory to 512mb.

Hard drive max is 120GB unless you install XP + SP 1 or SP 1 & 2.

You could also isntall a PCI ATA control card, though this is not necessary.

Look at installing a 60GB to 100gb hard disk. Possibly partitioned into two. Say 10GB O/S and the remainder data and programs. That way if your system gives problems you only need to re-install your O/S. Programs and data are still on other partition.

D4100 will easily take a second hard drive. Sits in a cage under the floppy disk drive.

Win 98 & ME are simple boot from bootable floppy disk, CD to CDROM drive, type setup and follow on screen instructions.

ME CD is bootable. Some Win 98 CD's are bootable

hth

Ceri

osprey4 · Answer

Sunshine:

I don't disagree with Ceri, but I would suggest you ask yourself if this computer serves your needs or not, well at least prior to your hard drive crash. If your 4100 serves your needs, then I would replace the hard drive, reinstall Windows 2000 and keep everything else exactly as is. Unlike XP, Win 2000 performs adequately with 256 MB RAM. And unless you were experiencing problems with your current video card, you're not going to find an upgrade is worth the money.

On the other hand, if the system no longer does what you need it to do, save your money for an upgraded system. The current 5150 is quite an excellent system (we just bought two at our church and they're very nice), for under $600.

SunshineEyes · Answer

osprey4,   Thank you for the good advice.  The machines is fine and it handles my graphic well, for what I need it for.  I will look into purchasing a new hard drive 80 to 120gb.  Is there any special brand I should prefer.  The one in the system is a Maxtor.     I do appreciate the help you and Ceri have given me.  I am not a computer wiz but I get by with some computer knowledge for an old lady.   Thanks again, take care, have a good week   SunshineEyes

ejn63 · Answer

Any of the other four makes of desktop drive (Seagate, WD, Samsung or Hitachi) is fine.

osprey4 · Answer

Sunshine:

My favorite site for finding local deals is Salescircular.com. You'll likely see that most of the deals are big drives, 160-200 GB. Although your computer cannot use a drive that big, they're so cheap it's hard to pass up a deal like that.

SunshineEyes · Answer

Hey   I purchased a Maxtor 200gp Ultra ATA 133 4x cache, from staples, it was on sale 39.95.  I thought I could split the dive 100 and 100.  This will work right?  I replace the hard drive and now my problem is that my machine will only read to the A drive, it will not read the CD drive where the disc is from the Maxtor hard drive package.  I have gone into the bio section when it starts up but no mater what I try it still does not read the CD drive.  Any suggestion?   SunshineEyes

osprey4 · Answer

Hi: Don't use the Maxtor disc. You should set the system to boot from your Win 2000 disc and run the reinstallation directly. Follow your Windows 2000 reinstallation guide.

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Hard Drive Crashed

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