New SATA drive

Robm1955

I have an Acer Aspire X3200 desktop pc, with a Western Digital 320g SATA 1.5 Gb/s, 8 MB Cache, 7200 RPM hard drive. This is failing, so I need to get it replaced. I've looked inside the case, and the optical drive, is on top of the hard drive. That's my first question, how do I remove it? My second is, can I get a SATAII, or SATAIII, and will they work with my pc? Plus can anyone recommend any reasonably priced drives. Thanks.

m5rcc

The HD is attached to case with either screws or a form of clip, just remove teh screws/unclip, pull out gently the power and data cables and slide out.

Your current HD is SATA I. SATA III is backward compatible with SATA II and SATA I. However I would assume your mobo is SATA I only.

Robm1955

So without changing the mobo, I have to stick to SATA I, is that right?

m5rcc

I believe so yes. Do you know the mobo model?

JamesK10

You shouldn't have to change the mobo, but possibly best to get a new SATA cable with the new drive, change that as well and then it'll run at SATA I speed.

It depends on your attitude to Western Digital if that's the brand that is dying on you now, I got nearly nine years out of one, and the one that lasted a decade was only killed by the cold and not a fault. There's only Seagate left as the biggest competitor, with maybe Fujitsu, Excelstor and Toshiba left depending on how much manufacturing was destroyed in the Philipino floods or Japanese Tsunami.

The Caviar Blue (midrange) is £56-60 for 500Gb approx, and £90-95 for the Caviar Black 1Tb, the latter with an eye for taking it back out and putting it into the next PC after that one - those are online prices from Dabs, CCL or Scan as samples. New cables start from a quid.

Robm1955

m5rcc wrote: »

I believe so yes. Do you know the mobo model?

Only info I can get is
Motherboard ID 10/17/2008-NF-MCP78-8A61O001C-00
Motherboard Name Unknown

Parva

A quick Google revealed that you have an Acer motherboard, see post #9 http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f210/voltage-question-406689.html#post2305233

ChiefGrasscutter

Some new disks many not recognise the older motherboard's slower data transfer rates automatically and you will need to set the jumpers on the new disk drive to correctly reflect the max data transfer rate of the old style motherboard that you have
Something to do with what sort of sata driver chip is on the mobo I recall.

Robm1955

Thanks guys. This is getting more technical than I was lead to believe. I thought the advantage of SATA drives was that you could just plug them in. I'm getting more confused by the minute.

robmar0se

Peeps are making this over complicated.

Just remove the sides of the desktop, there you will see the hdd. Most are held in place by 2 screws on each side and attached to the system by two push fit cables (some makes may have a different fitting, but not difficult to suss, eg Dells have clips, others may have a cradle which is held in by one/two screws, etc). Just get any 3.5" sata, of the size and make you need eg http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Caviar-SATAIII-Internal/dp/B00461G3MS - I have given a link for Amazon as they are very good about returns.

The hardest part will be re-installing the system (backing up first), or cloning the system - the latter doesn't always work, sector faults may stop the process, or in other cases just copying over the error, hence I would recommend a system rebuild from the original recovery disks.

Robm1955

Thanks Robmar0se. I agree, a clean install would be best, but I have some great programs I got from Giveawayoftheday, which have to be installed on the day they are available, so I can't re-install them. I was thinking of using Ghost to copy everything, but perhaps you're right.