Buying Notebook Hard Drive

[shadowpballer]

My old 40 gig harddrive is aging, to the point where it alerts me on every boot up and I have to press f1 to start. So I figured that it would be good to get a new drive. Since I like hard drive space, I figured I would find the biggest drive that is affordable.

The computer: Compaq Evo n 800c http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechS...ng=en&cc=us

It has the most recent bios update.

The hard drive: Seagate Momentus 5400.3 (Perpendicular Recording) ST9160821A 160GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822148073

Normally I would think that it would be no big deal, but I have 2 questions

1 I read somewhere that windows can not read more then 127 (might have been 137) gigs in a drive, which would not be a huge deal, but it would be nice to have all of it.

2 I thought all laptop 2.5in drives were compatible, but in the reviews it says: “Make sure that your laptop is ATA and that the BIOS can support this larger capacity.”

More info: I looked at an older hard drive that my laptop used and on it under interface it says “ATA/IDE”

[puntoMX]

Normally I would think that it would be no big deal, but I have 2 questions

1 I read somewhere that windows can not read more then 127 (might have been 137) gigs in a drive, which would not be a huge deal, but it would be nice to have all of it.

137GB for Windows 98 that is, Seagate has a "boot manager" that you can install when your BIOS doesn’t see the right size so don’t worry about the drive size. You already had 40GB so the 32GB barrier has been passed before.

2 I thought all laptop 2.5in drives were compatible, but in the reviews it says: “Make sure that your laptop is ATA and that the BIOS can support this larger capacity.”

Yours is, you can safely buy this drive .

[shadowpballer]

Thanks very much, also before I buy it, has any one here had any experiences with this drive? Or any other perpendicular drives.

[Camarade_Tux]

Normally I would think that it would be no big deal, but I have 2 questions

1 I read somewhere that windows can not read more then 127 (might have been 137) gigs in a drive, which would not be a huge deal, but it would be nice to have all of it.

137GB for Windows 98 that is, Seagate has a "boot manager" that you can install when your BIOS doesn’t see the right size so don’t worry about the drive size. You already had 40GB so the 32GB barrier has been passed before.

-> http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=78592

[puntoMX]

COOL!

[LLXX]

Indeed, 137Gb barrier is non-existent anymore.

Be careful with this, a high capacity hard drive will be much easier to damage due to the higher precision involved (closer track spacing) especially 2.5" drives. Don't subject it to much vibration when in use, it should be fine.

[Zxian]

@LLXX - How exactly does higher platter density translate into lower tolerance to vibrations? The main cause of failure due to vibrations is either a head crash (read/write heads touch the spinning surface), or the motor becoming misaligned and wearing faster than usual. The higher density also comes primarily from having more sectors on a track... not more tracks, so the precision in the read/write arm isn't that much higher than a standard drive.

[puntoMX]

I think LLXX is talking about the drives with more platters, more heads heavier construction.

[LLXX]

@LLXX - How exactly does higher platter density translate into lower tolerance to vibrations? The main cause of failure due to vibrations is either a head crash (read/write heads touch the spinning surface), or the motor becoming misaligned and wearing faster than usual. The higher density also comes primarily from having more sectors on a track... not more tracks, so the precision in the read/write arm isn't that much higher than a standard drive.

ALL hard drives are sensitive to vibration, but as it is impossible to maintain 100% lateral alignment of the head with the platters via the magnetic actuator, and in a design with higher densities the head does not have as much tolerance of movement before it reads the wrong track or sector. The timing requirements are also much tighter at high densities, and a small lateral movement of the head can result in read/write timing varying a tiny amount, but enough to cause an error.