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OEM vs. Retail hard drive
I hope this isn't too stupid a question.
OEM vs. Retail hard drive. I'm not concerned about the warranty, but that I've never installed a SATA drive before and this will be the only drive on the computer. I have XP Home or maybe Pro SP3. Does a retail box contain drivers or instructions that the OEM drive won't include and SP3 won't have? I have cables already, but I haven't chosen a drive. I've been looking at http://www.directron.com because they have a good price on a Thermaltake BlacX Duet Docking station. Thanks. |
#2
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OEM vs. Retail hard drive
On Aug 28, 6:53*am, mm wrote:
I hope this isn't too stupid a question. OEM vs. Retail hard drive. * *I'm not concerned about the warranty, but that I've never installed a SATA drive before and this will be the only drive on the computer. I have XP Home or maybe Pro SP3. Does a retail box contain drivers or instructions that the OEM drive won't include and SP3 won't have? I have cables already, but I haven't chosen a drive. *I've been looking athttp://www.directron.com*because they have a good price on a Thermaltake BlacX Duet Docking station. Thanks. Normally you just install the drive in a spare slot and turn PC on. You will probably need to format it, but Windows will usually prompt you to do that automatically. Drivers are part of XP. The most difficult part normaly is working out how to remove the main case of the PC. A philips screw driver and all will be OK Michael www.cnwrecovery.com |
#3
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OEM vs. Retail hard drive
On 8/28/2010 1:53 AM, mm wrote:
I hope this isn't too stupid a question. OEM vs. Retail hard drive. I'm not concerned about the warranty, but that I've never installed a SATA drive before and this will be the only drive on the computer. I have XP Home or maybe Pro SP3. Does a retail box contain drivers or instructions that the OEM drive won't include and SP3 won't have? I have cables already, but I haven't chosen a drive. I've been looking at http://www.directron.com because they have a good price on a Thermaltake BlacX Duet Docking station. Thanks. There aren't any special device drivers for different drives, that would be a nightmare. They all conform to a standard specification, for which you can use a single standard driver (usually supplied by Microsoft, if you're talking Windows). The Microsoft driver will also work identically whether you have older IDE drives, or the newer SATA. Yousuf Khan |
#4
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OEM vs. Retail hard drive
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 02:05:24 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote: On Aug 28, 6:53*am, mm wrote: I hope this isn't too stupid a question. OEM vs. Retail hard drive. * *I'm not concerned about the warranty, but that I've never installed a SATA drive before and this will be the only drive on the computer. I have XP Home or maybe Pro SP3. Does a retail box contain drivers or instructions that the OEM drive won't include and SP3 won't have? I have cables already, but I haven't chosen a drive. *I've been looking athttp://www.directron.com*because they have a good price on a Thermaltake BlacX Duet Docking station. Thanks. Normally you just install the drive in a spare slot and turn PC on. You will probably need to format it, but Windows will usually prompt you to do that automatically. Drivers are part of XP. Thank. It's only been 3 years since I put in an IDE drive, but I've already forgotten what that required. Nothing, I guess. Maybe that's why I forgot. The most difficult part normaly is working out how to remove the main case of the PC. A philips screw driver and all will be OK LOL. Well this was a DELL and I used a flat blade screwdriver to pull back the side cover. Then later I realized that the rubber L moved down to release the hooks. I'm lucky I didn't bend anything. Michael www.cnwrecovery.com |
#5
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OEM vs. Retail hard drive
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:50:40 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote: On 8/28/2010 1:53 AM, mm wrote: I hope this isn't too stupid a question. OEM vs. Retail hard drive. I'm not concerned about the warranty, but that I've never installed a SATA drive before and this will be the only drive on the computer. I have XP Home or maybe Pro SP3. Does a retail box contain drivers or instructions that the OEM drive won't include and SP3 won't have? I have cables already, but I haven't chosen a drive. I've been looking at http://www.directron.com because they have a good price on a Thermaltake BlacX Duet Docking station. Thanks. There aren't any special device drivers for different drives, that would be a nightmare. They all conform to a standard specification, for which you can use a single standard driver (usually supplied by Microsoft, if you're talking Windows). The Microsoft driver will also work identically whether you have older IDE drives, or the newer SATA. Thanks. BTW, I did look at several webpages about this and they just confused me. Yousuf Khan |
#6
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OEM vs. Retail hard drive
mm wrote:
I hope this isn't too stupid a question. Nope. OEM vs. Retail hard drive. I'm not concerned about the warranty, but that I've never installed a SATA drive before and this will be the only drive on the computer. I have XP Home or maybe Pro SP3. Then you are fine if you meant SP3 Home and Pro. Does a retail box contain drivers or instructions that the OEM drive won't include and SP3 won't have? Nope. I have cables already, but I haven't chosen a drive. I've been looking at http://www.directron.com because they have a good price on a Thermaltake BlacX Duet Docking station. OEM drives are fine. |
#7
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OEM vs. Retail hard drive
mm wrote:
I hope this isn't too stupid a question. OEM vs. Retail hard drive. I'm not concerned about the warranty, but that I've never installed a SATA drive before and this will be the only drive on the computer. I have XP Home or maybe Pro SP3. Does a retail box contain drivers or instructions that the OEM drive won't include and SP3 won't have? No. HDDs do not need drivers, and in fact you cannot get any. HDD controllers are a different stpry, but their drivers do not come with the drive either. Best find out what controller you have and get the drivers beforehand from the manufacturer web-page. That is if you plan to do a new installation. If not, the drivers should already be in there. On a new installation, it is also good to have some way to access the web and burn CDs in case you do need some specific drivers after all. Arno I have cables already, but I haven't chosen a drive. I've been looking at http://www.directron.com because they have a good price on a Thermaltake BlacX Duet Docking station. Thanks. -- Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F ---- Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans |
#8
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OEM vs. Retail hard drive
mm wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:50:40 -0400, Yousuf Khan wrote: On 8/28/2010 1:53 AM, mm wrote: I hope this isn't too stupid a question. OEM vs. Retail hard drive. I'm not concerned about the warranty, but that I've never installed a SATA drive before and this will be the only drive on the computer. I have XP Home or maybe Pro SP3. Does a retail box contain drivers or instructions that the OEM drive won't include and SP3 won't have? I have cables already, but I haven't chosen a drive. I've been looking at http://www.directron.com because they have a good price on a Thermaltake BlacX Duet Docking station. Thanks. There aren't any special device drivers for different drives, that would be a nightmare. They all conform to a standard specification, for which you can use a single standard driver (usually supplied by Microsoft, if you're talking Windows). The Microsoft driver will also work identically whether you have older IDE drives, or the newer SATA. Thanks. BTW, I did look at several webpages about this and they just confused me. That does not surprise me. There are a lot of incompetent people out there that still insist in distributing their wisdom. Simply remember that for HDDs, you need a driver for the controller (may already be in the OS, but does not need to be for Windows), but that HDDs themselves never need drivers. Arno -- Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F ---- Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans |
#9
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OEM vs. Retail hard drive
On 28 Aug 2010 19:32:01 GMT, Arno wrote:
mm wrote: I hope this isn't too stupid a question. OEM vs. Retail hard drive. I'm not concerned about the warranty, but that I've never installed a SATA drive before and this will be the only drive on the computer. I have XP Home or maybe Pro SP3. Does a retail box contain drivers or instructions that the OEM drive won't include and SP3 won't have? No. HDDs do not need drivers, and in fact you cannot get any. HDD controllers are a different stpry, but their drivers do not come with the drive either. Best find out what controller you have and get the drivers beforehand from the manufacturer web-page. That is if you plan to do a new installation. If not, the drivers should already be in there. On a new installation, it is also good to have some way to access the web and burn CDs in case you do need some specific drivers after all. Arno I have cables already, but I haven't chosen a drive. I've been looking at http://www.directron.com because they have a good price on a Thermaltake BlacX Duet Docking station. Thanks. Thanks Arno and Rod. And all the answers here were clearer than the webpages! I have already dl'd a copy of all the drivers to another computer and will probably burn them to copy to the new computer. The question about XP Home or Pro is a complicated XP question, which I guess would be OT for this ng, but I'll gladly tell it/ask about it if encouraged to. |
#10
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OEM vs. Retail hard drive
On 8/28/2010 12:11 PM, mm wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:50:40 -0400, Yousuf There aren't any special device drivers for different drives, that would be a nightmare. They all conform to a standard specification, for which you can use a single standard driver (usually supplied by Microsoft, if you're talking Windows). The Microsoft driver will also work identically whether you have older IDE drives, or the newer SATA. Thanks. BTW, I did look at several webpages about this and they just confused me. I understand. Now, the more complicated answer, which Arno has already alluded to is whether or not your hard drive "controller" needs a driver. The HD controller is usually built into the motherboards these days, so the driver for that controller is included into the overall driver for the motherboard. However, it is still possible to buy an aftermarket controller card, also known as a host-bus-adapter (HBA), which you would plug into one of the internal PCI expansion slots. That type of controller would need its own driver to be supplied, because the operating system would need to know how to communicate with that HBA. Once the OS knows how to talk to the HBA, then any hard disks you plug into that HBA will just use the standard disk drivers too. So if you're just buying a new hard disk (SATA or IDE) and just plugging it into one of the existing motherboard controller plugs, then you have nothing to do, the driver for the motherboard controller has already long-since been installed when the system was first setup. But if you're also installing a new HBA controller card into the system, then you'll have an additional driver to install. Yousuf Khan |
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