I have an HP Pavilion 2600 (desktop) with an 80 gb hard drive. It started grinding a little bit a few months ago and has increased greatly in the past weeks. Programs are slow to open and everything freezes when the hard drive is making that noise. The sound was worse when the hard drive needed to be defragged but now, even that isn't helping. I've saved all the important files so I'm good to go there. What I need to know is what kind of hard drive should I purchase. Is Windows XP on the HP Recovery disks and if not, how can I get that from my computer? Or do I have to buy the boot disk? I'm a little nervous about replacing it since I've never done this before but I hear its relatively simple as long as your follow instructions. My hard drive has C & D drives. Is that necessary? The D drive holds the HP Recovery disks but I already have those burned to a cd. Thanks for any info you all can provide for me!
2006-12-13 01:21:01 · 4 answers · asked by Bari 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Other - Hardware
have an HP Pavilion 2600 (desktop) with an 80 gb hard drive. It started grinding a little bit a few months ago and has increased greatly in the past weeks. Programs are slow to open and everything freezes when the hard drive is making that noise. The sound was worse when the hard drive needed to be defragged but now, even that isn't helping. I've saved all the important files so I'm good to go there. What I need to know is what kind of hard drive should I purchase. Is Windows XP on the HP Recovery disks and if not, how can I get that from my computer? Or do I have to buy the boot disk? I'm a little nervous about replacing it since I've never done this before but I hear its relatively simple as long as your follow instructions. My hard drive has C & D drives. Is that necessary? The D drive holds the HP Recovery disks but I already have those burned to a cd. Thanks for any info you all can provide for me!
Edited to add - Thank you! How can I find out if I need an IDE or SATA, etc.?
2006-12-13 02:18:09 · update #1
It depends how the recovery CDs are set up, some have Windows XP on them and some don't. You can put the new hard drive in and take the old one out and go ahead and try to use the recovery discs and if they don't work, no big deal because you can just put the old drive back in and continue working. If you didn't receive a Windows CD, it is most likely built into the recovery CDs. I suggest buying a Seagate drive, I have never had any problem with one of their drives.
2006-12-13 01:26:23 · answer #1 · answered by Yoi_55 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You've done your homework, I applaud you.
Yes, Windows should be on your recovery discs, I'm glad you burnt them already and backed up all of your important data. The big choice for you now, is to go out and find a good hard drive. I would suggest somewhere around the 160+ Gb range, that way you have plenty of space for whatever you need. The prices on hard drives have been dropping at a steady pace too, with larger and better hard drives coming out constantly. The big Hard Drive vendors I would suggest buying from include Western Digital and Seagate. There are plenty of places on the net that will sell hard drives at warehouse prices too. I would suggest starting at the following website for a good reference. http://www.newegg.com
2006-12-13 09:35:09 · answer #2 · answered by coldblade666 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
contact hp dealer since they provide free service if with in a year and if more than one year has happened since u bought the computer i would suggest u too buy the seagate hardidsk with sata compactable . its even better
2006-12-13 09:37:15 · answer #3 · answered by vamshi 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Have you checked out HP's site for information", they also have forums that you can ask specific questions of other users.. good luck
2006-12-13 09:33:05 · answer #4 · answered by ladeehwk 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋