Can you replace an old hard drive with a new one on an old computer?

Question

I have an older computer that is pretty good but overloaded with junk. would replacing the hard drive even help and if so can i put such anew part in an old computer with no problem. It is about ten years old.

I'm planning putting on a 80 to 100 gig hard drive.

Answer 1

.Yes, absolutely you can.
But if you don't want the expense of purchasing a newer computer, it would be simpler to just add a hard second hard drive, and move your extra files to the second hard drive.
That way, you don't have to install a new Operating System, or worry about upgrades compatibility of so many components (especially since your system is older and probably slower).

You can get a used/formatted 20 or 40 Gig hard drive from friends or ebay from free to quite inexpensive.

Open the case > touch metal to DEstatic yourself >
(that's very important);
find the SYSTEM ribbon. It will be plugged into the motherboard and the first hard drive; and it should have an extra plug-in on it.
Attach with screws the second hard drive into an accommodating area; and attach the system ribbon to the second hard drive, plus plug into it a power line. Look at the first hard drive as a guide.
You may see other ribbons:
1 for a floppy drive
1 for CD drive or burner (or both on the same ribbon)

While you are in there, use canned air to blow out the dust, and clean your fan.
Close the tower, and restart your computer.

If you plugged things in correctly, your Operating System should "see" the second hard drive as D.
If it does not, the go back into the case and reverse the plug-in on the ribbon.
Then restart your computer.
Then you can start moving files off of C onto D to free up hard drive space on C,
which WILL speed up your computer respectively.

Do NOT move your WINDOWS or SYSTEM files.
I'd leave most programs on C too.
You can move all YOUR stuff.

RIGHT click START > left click EXPLORE
In the left Explore panel you should see ALL the files on your computer.
To move them you
RIGHT click / hold down mouse key / drag the file to hover over D >
then let go the mouse button > select MOVE HERE

If you don't know what a file is, don't move it!!!

You will be very happy with the results.
You can also create a bit more speed by increasing your virtual ram (but that's another question).

h2h

Answer 2

Your success depends greatly on your present operating system. If the current operating system supports NTFS or 32 bit formatting, then it should work without losing much space. Some space will be lost to what is generally referred to as "house keeping" this is information stored in the drive that the drive uses for information placement.
My advice would be to go to Price watch and buy a bare bones system. When you buy a new computer, you are simply replacing most of what you have now. Get a bare bones with a new drive, as well as a new mother board, case& power supply, CPU and any new RAM. You'll end up with a superior computer to what Dell would provide you for the same price. Companies like Dell can sell for less because they not only buy in quantity, some of their stuff is just not as good as it could be.
If you keep your current system, then you could lose a good portion of the capacity of the new hard drive simply because the BIOS will not support it. The good side of this is that such loss is not permanent. If you upgrade to a better operating system, and reformat the drive, then the "lost" capacity will be regained.

Answer 3

If your computer is 10 years old then your system might not support a modern High Capacity Hard Drive.. you should first look over the specifications for your computer to see if it will support an HD as large as you plan to buy...

I agree with those above though.. it is better to replace the whole computer unless you have a specific use for the old one (like controlling a robot or something) that you can't use a new one to do...

Why replace it all? You will get a new operating system with everything being compatible.. also, older components are more likely to fail and then you are stuck with a hard disk and a broken computer.. you get more HD space.. then you want new software.. and your old computer is probably not fast enough to handle the new stuff... upgrade if you can.. if not.. just get a small and cheap HD to fill in until you can afford to upgrade the whole computer.

Answer 4

Usually there is no problem with adding new hard drives on to older computers, perhaps you could try a slower speed harddrive just to be sure. You could even try adding a second hard drive to save you having to reload everything. As long as your IDE cable has an extra connection.
To speed up the pc perhaps try using some programs such as ccleaner to tidy things up.
Another way to ease the load might be to add some more ram, but depending on the type of rams, not all pc shops might not keep them in stock. It also depends on the mainboard if it can support the extra ram.
Hope this help :)

Answer 5

yes, you can replace the drive OR just add an extra drive
it would help a little, but not much.
you would have more storage space, but it wouldn't speed it up much. If you get an extra drive for it, just get a real cheap used drive that is bigger than the one you already have in there.
Hook it up as a secondary slave
(send me a message if you need help with that part)
Then you can copy stuff like documents and files that are taking up space on your main drive and free up some room for it to run better, and move the virtual memory file location to the second drive.
It doesn't make sense to get a brand new drive and put it into a 10 yr old computer.

Answer 6

You can upgrade the hard drive as much as you want but what really helps a computer run faster is the processor speed and ram. Upgrading the hard drive can actually slow down the computer because it gives more space for the processor to search. Probably better to get a new computer.

Answer 7

Yes you can, but you are limited in what you can replace it with.
Being that old, the PC will not support the newer technology etc. You can find older hard drives for sale...

But honestly I'd look into cleaning up the old drive. You can reformat it and reload the OS and get a lot more use out of it.

Answer 8

Yes you can. But If the computer is ten years old you should get a new one. They are really cheap now-a-days. You can get a good desktop from Dell for like 300-400 dollars!

Answer 9

no don't waste your money, the chances are it will not support such a large hard drive, from memory this is due to the file system and the bios......

if you can get your hands on a smaller 10 or 20gig drive that should work.....

Answer 10

Yes you can. I just did that about 3 months ago. You just have to find one that is compatable with your system. If unsure take your computer brand, model number and serial number and talk to a computer tech. at a computer repair service and they will be more helpful.