computer hard drive help???????

Question

do you have to have a certain model hard drive for your computer or can it be any hard drive? i have a hp pavilion a510n

Answer 1

it depends on how old your computer is. older computers can't have large hard drives without buying an adapter. the new ons it doesn't matter. if it's your computer holds ide hard drives make sure your new one is ide. SATA equipped motherboard can usually accept both, but SATA are a lot faster.

Answer 2

SLOW PC FIXES: Something is probably running at startup and dragging your PC down, you need to try out step one, see what is launching at start up and disable it. Also, did you recently install something that could be causing this? Try uninstalling the last program you installed. 1)Stomp auto-starting programs. Click Start > Run and type "msconfig" at the prompt. Click the Startup tab and look at all that junk that loads when you launch your PC. Do you really need "Adobe Reader Speed Launch"? Probably not. Turn off anything else that looks useless, but be careful not to disable Windows system components. 2) Clean up the disk. Uninstall unneeded programs (especially those that run at startup and/or put something in the system tray), run Disk Cleanup, and defragment the drive. This is a good first step that will almost always take a few seconds off boot time and application loads for any computer. 3) Run a full anti-virus and anti-spyware scan. I would recommend using AVG Free Anti-virus, AVG Anti-Spyware, Spybot, Ad-Aware. 4) Clean up the registry. This is controversial, as some experts claim registry cleaners don't really help. I've seen evidence to the contrary, so I recommend doing it if you've got a major slowdown. CCleaner is free and worth running. 5)Delete old network connections. Your computer may be trying to connect to shared hard drives that no longer exist. In Windows Explorer right-click on any network shares you don't actively use and click Delete. Under Tools, also click "Disconnect Network Drive" to see if there are any others lurking about. Those are the easy and free things you can do. If your computer is still slow you need to move on to the bigger guns. 1) Upgrade RAM. This is the one killer trick that will make almost any computer run faster. With an older PC, you will rarely have enough RAM to run today's memory-hogging operating systems and applications, and adding a high-capacity stick or two of quality RAM will give you a quick speed boost. Adding RAM is fairly simple, even for a novice, and you should be able to do the job in 5 or 10 minutes. 2)Reinstall Windows. If the above tricks haven't helped, it may be time to wipe the slate clean and start again, reformatting your hard drive, reinstalling your applications, and restoring your data files from a backup. You'd be surprised how much more responsive a freshly reinstalled Windows system can be, as you've wiped out years of temp files, garbled registry entries, old versions of software programs that have been upgraded repeatedly, and all sorts of other electronic junk. Reinstalling is easy if you have the "recovery disk" that came with your PC, and only a bit more involved if you're using a retail copy of Windows XP. Just be sure you back up everything you want to take with you before you pull the trigger! 3)Upgrade your hard drive. This is a more complicated solution, but if you're reinstalling Windows (per the prior tip) you might consider upgrading to a bigger and possibly faster hard drive, too. Hard disk storage is a performance bottleneck on every machine, and magnetic disks degrade over time. Some performance issues could be caused by a failing hard drive, even, and upgrading to a new model could really put some zip back in your system. As a bonus, you can use the original hard drive for backups or occasional storage, if you put it in an enclosure.

Answer 3

You can use any brand but you do want to find out if it needs a SATA or IDE drive. Typically though any PCs that are SATA capable will still have an IDE connector also. SATA is just a little faster and preferred if you can use it. Also some older PCs cannot recognize the large drives that are out today but if your PC is new you shouldn't have to worry about the size issue.

Answer 4

Others have answered your question well. Make sure the connections you get for your hard drive are correct. It will either be an IDE/ATA connection or a SATA connection.

Either way, get the SEAGATE brands! They are the only ones to have a 5-year warranty!

Answer 5

if ur pc is less than 4 years old all u need to worry about is if u need a SATA drive or an ATA ... if ur harddrive connects with a large wide ribbon cable u need an ATA ... if it has a rather thin cable then u need SATA ... if ur pc is older than 4 years u need to worry about HD size also .. older pcs have bios limitations and the older they are the more limited in size they are .. 4-5 year old pcs are probably limited to 130gigs ...

Answer 6

I can give you a link that deals with hard drive problems.
Some RAM/hard drive problems can be easily fixed yourself by using easily available tools. I found the info at http://fixit.in useful. Try this site, if you can get what is required

Answer 7

The hardrive needs to be compatible with your motherboard. After you find out the motherboard info, then install the compatible drive, you will probably need to format the new drive.

Answer 8

I would assume you don't need a specific hard drive for your computer i don't think they actually sell them like that. Just go out to Wal-Mart and buy one lol it plugs right in.

Answer 9

pretty much any hard drive will do as long as the "connections" match.

Typical connections are IDE

The new smaller ones are SATA (serial ATA)

Answer 10

It has to go with your operating system. You have to make sure that the plugs are compatible with the ones on your computer.