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Ok Techies!
My sons 'puter stopped working.
Took it to a local PC shop and they want £90 to replace the faulty Hard Drive.
Now, seen as I can get an 80gb HDD for about £ 35 - 40 I'm thinking of doing it myself. Only problem is I've never done one before .
How hard will it be?
I'm not worried about losing info, it was only a 7 year olds play PC.
Do I need a SATA,or an IDE,or a PATA,or an ATA or a whatever Hard Drive?
Samsung, Maxtor, IBM, Does it matter?
New or Re-furbished?
Any advice welcome
FK

http://www.fonerbooks.com/r_hard.htm

Picture paints a thousand words..


Swap HDD,
Reinstall XP or whatever's on it,
Job's a Fish!

I just troll into PC Worms,with the old un, grab an oik, let them run about finding you various suitable HDDs before making a choice based purely on which one is cheapest and biggest!!

Actually, that's what I was hoping was gonna happen here

'go for the cheapest and biggest'

There. Sorted

FlyingKiwi wrote:Ok Techies!
My sons 'puter stopped working.
Took it to a local PC shop and they want £90 to replace the faulty Hard Drive.
Now, seen as I can get an 80gb HDD for about £ 35 - 40 I'm thinking of doing it myself. Only problem is I've never done one before .
How hard will it be?
I'm not worried about losing info, it was only a 7 year olds play PC.
Do I need a SATA,or an IDE,or a PATA,or an ATA or a whatever Hard Drive?
Samsung, Maxtor, IBM, Does it matter?
New or Re-furbished?
Any advice welcome
FK

One advantage is you can specify what needs putting on it, they will also make sure its working at optimum (well the ones I know do) plus the guarantee, anything goes wrong in the 1st year they have to sort it. IMO £90 is cheap.

Working at optimum? How'd they do that then?



If you pay 40 quid for what physically takes 15 minutes, more fool you!

Swap HDD : 2 minutes.
Turn on, Insert Windows Disc 1 minute
Press a few keys, 2 minutes

*goes for brew or two*

Come back: spend 12 minutes registering windows.

Where's the hardship there?

Warranty? Manufacturers warranty is a year as it is?! That's all a shop'd use to recoup a new HDD.

I did this very operation over Xmas. Now whilst it is definately not as easy as Kwackerz makes out - well not for me anyway - it is certainly a DIY job especially if you have ever reinstalled an Operating System before.

I got an 80 GB HD for about £30 from E Buyer.

There are lots of step by step guides on the net - it helps to have another pooter online as you do it so you can refer to guide if in doubt.

Watch for static - use a strap to be xtra sure. Remove old HD noting which plug on which cable it hooks up to. Should be 2 cables - 1 for power and the big flat one for data. Note how jumper is set and set new HD the same.

Format the new drive - good time to opt for a partition if you haven't already. Install Windows.

That's meant to show how easy it is but not a full and comprehensive guide

Hey Hey, Job Done
easy peasy and only cost £33 for the drive and £15 for the initial fault finding.
Now If I don't tell "Her in doors" I can spend the £47 difference from the shop on some Falco Bling

Well fettled.

Well done !!

Now what can you get for £47 ?

Not a lot

Fausto wrote:
I got an 80 GB HD for about £30 from E Buyer.

I often buy from eBuyer but think you were done this time (well only a little bit).

My PC is now running with half a Terrabyte - 2x 250 GB drives from Aldi .... if I remember they were about £50 or £60 each.

They are Western Digital Caviar as well

My son's was a Cybermaxx PC from Toysrus, which is a Medion computer, who do the Aldi computers.
It was a Seagate drive, only a couple of yrs old which went pop.