Failing Hard Drive

My hard drive has begun to screech and groan. It is in a five year NEC
desktop running Windows 98 on a 300 Mhz Pentium processor.

Compuserve suggested a 20 GIG replacement. It is their own brand, made
by Maxtor. They did not have anything smaller.

My questions:

A) Are there stores that still sell new 6 and 10 Gig replacement
drives?

B) Can my 300 Mhz machine accept and run trouble free on Compuserve's
20 Gig drive?

C) Can Compuserve be relied on to install and transfer the old drive's
data properly? (They offer to do the transfer for $80)

D) Does anyone know of a better solution in the NYC area? I will
appreciate anyone's opinions and suggestions.

Nathan C Langston wrote in message news:...
My hard drive has begun to screech and groan. It is in a five year NEC
desktop running Windows 98 on a 300 Mhz Pentium processor.

Compuserve suggested a 20 GIG replacement. It is their own brand, made
by Maxtor. They did not have anything smaller.

In other words, Compuserve purchased Maxtor drives, put their label on
it and marked up the price.

A) Are there stores that still sell new 6 and 10 Gig replacement
drives?

Probably not. The smallest 3.5" HD I've seen lately is 40 GB and
those are getting rare. You can find 2.5" laptop HDs in those sizes
new, but that's rather pointless for your desktop :-)

B) Can my 300 Mhz machine accept and run trouble free on Compuserve's
20 Gig drive?

If it's properly installed, yes, and if your motherboard BIOS supports
it. You should check your computer's documentation for HD limits.

C) Can Compuserve be relied on to install and transfer the old drive's
data properly? (They offer to do the transfer for $80)

That seems rather steep. I have no experience with Compuserve or
their tech support, but your mileage may vary. You may get an
excellent tech, or they may send an out a person who is an idiot.

D) Does anyone know of a better solution in the NYC area? I will
appreciate anyone's opinions and suggestions.

I'd suggest you do a search (either Usenet/googlegroups or general web
search) for hard drive ghosting/imaging/copying software. You can get
several good programs for $80 that will copy your old hard drive
exactly, including the existing operating system.

If you can use a screwdriver, tweezers, and know how to operate Lego
blocks, you can install your own new hard drive. CompUSA has a
Seagate 120 GB HD, 7200 RPB, 8mb cache on sale this week (through
10/18/03) for $59.99 after rebates and before shipping. And how much
did Compuserve want for their outdated, 1/6 size hard drive? :-)

Good luck, HTH

On 14 Oct 2003 20:43:44 -0700, (Nathan C Langston)
wrote in posted to
comp.hardwa

My hard drive has begun to screech and groan. It is in a five year NEC
desktop running Windows 98 on a 300 Mhz Pentium processor.

It will need to be replaced.


Compuserve suggested a 20 GIG replacement. It is their own brand, made
by Maxtor. They did not have anything smaller.

Compuserve ? My instinct is that you mean "CompUSA". They do sell
Maxtor drives under the CompUSA name.

My questions:

A) Are there stores that still sell new 6 and 10 Gig replacement
drives?

Not likely, as mentioned by Anonymous Jack. You _might_ find one at a
computer show, but even if they are new they're likely to be well out
of warranty.

Typically, 40-gig drives are the smallest widely-available size.


B) Can my 300 Mhz machine accept and run trouble free on Compuserve's
20 Gig drive?

The hurdle is the BIOS: at five years of age it probably can not
recognize anything much larger than what you have in there.
For the machine to use the entire drive you may have to use
BIOS-overlay software; such utilities are supplied with Maxtor,
Western Digital, and Seagate drives.
Overlay software is not the ideal alternative; it may be a viable
alternative in this case.


C) Can Compuserve be relied on to install and transfer the old drive's
data properly? (They offer to do the transfer for $80)

Again, I'll presume 'CompUSA'. Personally, I've not been impressed
with the technical knowledge of the sales staff in any of their
stores.
Nor was I impressed with the one instance (of which I was informed by
a friend) of a computer 'repaired' by them.

The other responder noted some software that can handle the data
retrieval and imaging to another drive. PowerQuest's Drive Image and
Norton Ghost are among two good choices.

D) Does anyone know of a better solution in the NYC area? I will
appreciate anyone's opinions and suggestions.

I'd check with friends, co-workers, or family members to learn about
independent computer shops. Some will have the expertise of tree
frogs and some will be knowledgeable and charge fair prices.


Ron n1zhi

(Anonymous Jack) wrote in message . com...
Nathan C Langston wrote in message news:...
My hard drive has begun to screech and groan. It is in a five year NEC
desktop running Windows 98 on a 300 Mhz Pentium processor.

Compuserve suggested a 20 GIG replacement. It is their own brand, made
by Maxtor. They did not have anything smaller.

In other words, Compuserve purchased Maxtor drives, put their label on
it and marked up the price.

A) Are there stores that still sell new 6 and 10 Gig replacement
drives?

Probably not. The smallest 3.5" HD I've seen lately is 40 GB and
those are getting rare. You can find 2.5" laptop HDs in those sizes
new, but that's rather pointless for your desktop :-)

B) Can my 300 Mhz machine accept and run trouble free on Compuserve's
20 Gig drive?

If it's properly installed, yes, and if your motherboard BIOS supports
it. You should check your computer's documentation for HD limits.

C) Can Compuserve be relied on to install and transfer the old drive's
data properly? (They offer to do the transfer for $80)

That seems rather steep. I have no experience with Compuserve or
their tech support, but your mileage may vary. You may get an
excellent tech, or they may send an out a person who is an idiot.

D) Does anyone know of a better solution in the NYC area? I will
appreciate anyone's opinions and suggestions.

I'd suggest you do a search (either Usenet/googlegroups or general web
search) for hard drive ghosting/imaging/copying software. You can get
several good programs for $80 that will copy your old hard drive
exactly, including the existing operating system.

If you can use a screwdriver, tweezers, and know how to operate Lego
blocks, you can install your own new hard drive. CompUSA has a
Seagate 120 GB HD, 7200 RPB, 8mb cache on sale this week (through
10/18/03) for $59.99 after rebates and before shipping. And how much
did Compuserve want for their outdated, 1/6 size hard drive? :-)

Good luck, HTH

A) Are there stores that still sell new 6 and 10 Gig replacement
drives?
Yes, here is one http://store.yahoo.com/magnatek1/qufi10ei35in.html
several more at this site.

B) Can my 300 Mhz machine accept and run trouble free on Compuserve's
20 Gig drive?
Yes, At best you can just install the new drive and be your way. At
worst your BIOS does not support drives this large at which you can
1.) see if the manufacturer of the hard drive has some Disk Manager
software or you could purchase a Hard Drive controller with it's own
BIOS or you can upgrade your current BIOS in your computer if one
exists. As mentioned above by Anonymous Jack you will need to check
to see what limits there are on Hard Drive size.

That 120 GB Seagate looks to be a nice drive but on the system you
have you most likely will need a new Hard Drive controller to be able
to use all 120GB and also to be able to run the drive as fast as it
can go.