Hard Drives

spacecadet11

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Hello. I in the near future am going to buy new hard drives. They will not have an operating system when I do so. I will buy those as well. Somebody recently told me that 'before' I am able to load an operating system..I will have to go to the 'computer manufacturer's' web site and 'potentially' download...drivers in order to be able to eventually load the OS onto the drives. Is that true? If so..is that an easy or long process?

Can anything really go wrong?

Thanks for any and all responses
Bye
SC
 
Not true. The only "Drivers" I have ever had to get from a company with regards to a HDD is a program to to check for errors and such on older drives. Drives today do not need a driver for any OS to utilize them. Am I to assume that you use Windows, and will buy a SATA drive?
 
Hello. No...I have to buy an operating system..most likely Windows and load it onto the hard drives.
I would like to get potentially at this time 'IDE' drives..simply because they are..'cheaper'..but just for now.
What I am 'specifically' wondering is if I buy harddrives..will I have to download machine specific 'drivers'..in order to ready the drives to load a brand new licensed copy of an operating system..most likely Windows 8?
Thanks
SC
 
Nope... the OS will find your hard drive with relative ease. I have heard of some SCSI drives having issues, but that is not the case here... Why would you want IDE drives? unless you already have a motherboard with IDE connections, most new boards today don't even have them. It's a dead (or soon to be) technology. Get a SATA drive as it will be better in performance and data xfer than an IDE.

What kind of motherboard do you have BTW?
 
It's my friends..equipment. Both machines she has are older. Question...I think I am able to put in 'both' kinds of drives..and the computer can use them..both IDE and SATA drives. Am I mistaken?

Thanks for the information you provided..seems like I just go ahead and buy the drives I want.. then buy an operating system..and simply load the OS when I get home.....

Bye
SC
 
spacecadet11 said:
Hello. No...I have to buy an operating system..most likely Windows and load it onto the hard drives.
I would like to get potentially at this time 'IDE' drives..simply because they are..'cheaper'..but just for now.
Nowadays, the only way IDE drives are cheaper than SATA ones are if you get the IDE's used or refurbished.
 
It's my friends..equipment. Both machines she has are older. Question...I think I am able to put in 'both' kinds of drives..and the computer can use them..both IDE and SATA drives. Am I mistaken

Before you just buy a drive, you'll have to open up or Google the specs for the machine/motherboard in question. If the mobo is older and will NOT support a SATA drive, then you know not to buy one. You can also image search (if you do now know) what a SATA connection looks like compared to an IDE, if you open up the machine.
 
If you can't open up her computers or Google the specific model-numbers, you might be able to deduce SATA from IDE drives in the Control Panel's Device Manager.

Sometimes, I find it easier to download and install the free SANDRA LITE (off of the FileHippo page). This gives tons of details - often feeling "too much" but at least I can be certain what kind of drives are currently used.

I do run across instances where a motherboard (like a Dell OptiPlex 330) has SATA connectors but, lo and behold, there's an unused IDE port, too (which is great for a tried-and-true Pioneer DVD burner).

But I think modern SATA drives will be less expensive than a 'new' IDE, and with greater performance and capacity - if the old machines accept those. I've got an inventory closet full of dust-collecting IDEs... hmmm...

Also note that the most recent capacities of SATA Drives have reached 3Tb and 4Tb, but older systems can't use them due to BIOS and/or Operating System limitations. When I hear someone saying, "You need to load a driver for a hard drive", I am reminded that many of these newest large-drives DO come with some magic-trick driver-software that supposedly works. But for older systems, I'd still recommend staying that the 2Tb-or-less capacity.
 
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Nukem posted the likely-specs on SC11's other thread as a Lenovo. (I've swiped Nukem's link here.)

It looks like it uses an IDE DVD-R but has 2 SATA connectors, meaning "2 SATA HDDs, max".

Also, this is a SATA-II connection. If I was buying on a budget, I might be able to find a cheaper SATA-II drive instead of the newer SATA-III (or "SATA3"), but I'd buy on price-alone. If the SATA3 was cheaper, I'd get that because, after all, it could be transferred out, sometime in the future, to the next box and it will deliver better data-thru-put.
 
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