Hard Drive Upgrade question?

Question

i have a hp a1100y computer with a 40 gb hard drive , question can a upgrade my computer to a 300 gb hard drive

Answer 1

If you read the installation manual that comes with a large hard drive, it will have some omnious warnings about the 136gb limit and the possibility of losing data beyond that limit. You need at least SP1 to avoid this problem.

Windows XP Home Edition with SP2 that comes with your computer should be able to handle this problem (something has to do with 40 bit addressing).

You can check this by checking the size of hard drive after the installing it. If your hard drive shows up as 136gb instead of 300gb, then you need to install PCI expansion cards designed to handle such volumes. "SYBA SY-VIA-150R PCI SATA /IDE Combo RAID Controller Card" costs less than $20 at Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815124023

Your computer usually comes with SATA (Serial ATA) instead of regular ATA. If that's the case, you want to get a SATA hard drive. If you are not sure of which one you have, look at these pictures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Attachment

Answer 2

Yes, if You BIOS on your computer