I haven't been around in a while, but I have a question for you guys. My desktop computer is getting pretty slow and the guys at staples said I probably need a new hard drive. Here's a link to the original spec sheet for it:

http://www.docs.sony.com/release/spe...RX850_mksp.pdf

I would appreciate it if one of you computer gurus would direct me to a couple different hard drives to get. I've searched newegg and ebay and found some that I thought might work, but I'm not sure about going bigger and getting it to work. I know it's old, but we use it as a backup. I kinda upgraded it last year with more RAM, new video card, new monitor, and keyboard and mouse, so I don't just wanna scrap it. Everything is stored on our new laptop, so recovery is not an issue. I just don't know what size to get and how to get it to work after I get one. Can I just install it and run my system recovery disks? Or is it alot more complicated than that?

Thanks

 

I'm far from a guru but the first problem you'll have is the limited source of HD for the ATA. I found one at Tigerdirect for $130.00. But why spend the money when that's not the issue. The issue is the P4 processor. There's not a lot you're going to do to it to speed it up. You can tune it and it'll make some difference but not a lot. Todays programming is just too large. For $399.00 you can buy an I3 with a DVDRW and more memory than that P4 can handle for $399.00. You understand if you replace the HD, you'll still have to reload all programs and format it for your usage. Since you'll have to do that anyway, do it to something worth having.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...097&CatId=5138

So you are aware, the desktop is going away. HP has already announced they are getting out of the desktop market and Dell will be announcing soon. They feel like the IPads and Notebooks are the future. My kids mom brought an IPad to the house for me to look at. It was impressive. With wireless being what it is today there's no need for a desktop and most of the IPads and Notebooks are HDMI ready so whatever the TV screen is at home is what the monitor size is. If you want a desktop, you'd better be looking and buying soon. FWIW, she is the IT buyer for the 5th largest school district in Texas. She rides herd on over 45,000 units. Smart wench.

 

I doubt seriously that a new hard drive is going to speed it up. I was trying to figure out the age of that PC, a date at the bottom of the spec sheet is 2002?

You'll have to replace the drive with an ATA drive, and they are expensive. Alternatively, you MAY be able to buy a SATA controller card and then connect a SATA drive, which would possibly be cheaper.

But I really would not throw any more money at that PC. It doesn't have to be "fast" to be used as a backup.

- Jack

 

Before you invest in a new HD ( or new PC ), check that the drive has not had too many errors and shifted from DMA to PIO.

Mom's sony ( my old desktop from years ago ) did this not too long ago. If more that six DMA transfer timeouts occur windows will set the drive to PIO.

I set it back, and it has been fine since.

If you google you will find all sorts of info on this.

The other thing see if you are at the Max RAM on the machine.
If you are not, get some before the trailing edge of Moore's law slaps you up along side the head, and it costs an arm & leg to add RAM.
More RAM will help with applications, and unless you are upgrading to Win/7 and office 2010, the processor and memory in what you have should be fine. Don't expect it to play any serious games.

As to the desktop is going away, not really.
HP is getting out of the PC market all together, sticking with higher margin products like servers, same as IBM did years ago ( this includes tablets and laptops ).
HP is looking at the higher margin sales IBM has with servers and VDI, and VDI vendors like Citrix have HDX for everything now ( iPad, PC, even latop lite devices for road warriors ).
Intel even likes VDI, as they make $ 4.00 more per seat when selling processors for VDI vs a standalone PC or laptop.

Manufactures like Lenovo and Asus have taken the little bit of margin left, out of the desktop and laptop market.
This is another case of US manufactures ( and US wages ) cannot compete with China, where even after a large wage increase, it is still 300.00 / month wages for factory workers.

The home user will have PCs of some type for a long time. Service providers are still having that cross over issue for getting VDI to the home.

 

Desktops will never be obsolete. To many custom builders! Store bought desktop computers may disappear from the shelfs though.

 

Ask the guys at Staples *WHY* they think you need a new hard drive? If it's simply because it's getting too full, delete unnecessary files and uninstall unnecessary programs, then defrag it.

Finding bigger P-ATA drives is no problem, and they are not expensive, but the bios in that machine MAY NOT recognize a drive larger than 128gb.

That's ridiculous. Stay out of Tiger Direct, they peddle overpriced junk. Newegg has 80 gig P-ATA's for 50 bucks, and 320 gig for 65 bucks, both Western Digital.

 

Run ccleaner on your HD to clean it up.
www.ccleaner.com

 

No,
way too many people use them for gaming and other things you just cant have a "pad" do, like run three screens and hook a wheel up to it for racing.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?se...ess&id=8316009

This only says tablets and smart phones.

http://techandfilm.wordpress.com/201...uter-purchase/

The board of directors at Hewlet Packard (HP) have announced today that they plan on focusing specifically on enterprise business and sales. In order to do so, they plan to move their existing personal computer division into another seperate company. In layman’s terms, HP will stop producing the much loved (and hated) personal computers that have become a staple in the American households.

Just because Hp stops making them and hands it to a new company does not mean anything.

To the Op,
Just buy a new cheep PC from walmart or newegg.com
It will be faster, and its easier than trying to make that older PC worth the time and money spent on it.
Its like anything else, its getting old and slow, you could try to squeeze some more years out of it, but the cost would be close to, or more than a new PC.

 

Think its time to get a new puter. You can probaly upgrade it and it will run alot faster but the money you spend on it you can get a new one for a few more bucks.

I have a old dell GX280 that i use here at work and its been a damn good computer. Its only a 3.2ghz P4 with 2 gigs of ram 40 gig hard drive with windows 7 on it. Only thing i have done to it is upgrade the ram and put a 1 gig nvidia graphics card in it. Runs windows 7 and about any game i want to play with no problems. Sad thing is i own a computer shop but im still using a old dell. I dont like change

 

For a BACKUP computer, it's worth fixing. It MAY only need a wipe and reload.

I just remembered - Sony partitions their hard drives, and I'm betting that the primary partition is simply full. There is a very easy way to move the "My Documents" structure to the second partition, which is probably empty or very close to it.

Open My Computer, right click on each drive, and note the size and free space of each. What do you see?

 

Reformat it.

Make sure you save pics and stuff.

If you are going to get a new computer, spend the money and get the good stuff. The price shock only hurts once, versus spending half and for the next two years complaining that you didnt get the bigger one (if your demands call for it).

 

yes reformat it for now, it will be just like it was new way back in 02 haha

but then look into replacing it for good with a nice cheap modern pc, they are cheap you can get one for under $200 for one that you will be using for "back up" or build yourself one for under $400 and have a nice setup

 

I have tried to restore it, everytime I put the recovery disk in it tells me: "Cannot normally execute the initial setting of partition information. This utility exits and your computer is rebooted." So thats why the told me it might be the hard drive. The main reason they said it would be best to replace the hard drive cause it was like $125 for them to try and restore it and if it didn't work it was like $75 to replace the hard drive. The partition was factory set a 20gb and 60gb, I have never modified that part. When I upgraded the ram I took it all the way to the max, which I believe is 1.5gb. I know its an old computer, but up until about 6 months ago, it was pretty fast and did what we needed it to do for what it is. I have tried to uninstall a bunch of software and it won't let me because I guess I tried to remove some of it in the wrong order, such as a bunch of hp software, others it won't let me cause I deleted a bunch of files before I tried to restore it cause I thought it would be wiped anyway. When it really started getting slow, I downloaded Mcafee virus software that was free for charter internet customers. It really slowed the computer down so I uninstalled it, but it still shows up in task manager now. I really just wanna get it fixed for cheap, I don't wanna buy a new tower, I would rather just buy another laptop so we each have one. It was pretty fast for what it is before it started messing up. I found these on ebay, will they work?:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/330588692459...84.m1423.l2649

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120737975389...84.m1423.l2649

 

Yes, but WHY DO YOU THINK you need a new hard drive? Just because Staples says you do, don't take that for gospel. Do you always believe what shops tell you is wrong with your truck? You need to investigate this a bit farther - now, HOW FULL are your 2 partitions?

FYI, I've been in the computer building, service, and repair business for over 15 years and the typical big box store tech is an idiot. They hire kids right out of school who think they know everything and pay them minimum wage.

 

I just figured a new hard drive would be the easiest course of action. I just asked them because I was in there and couldn't get it to restore. The D drive partition, 60gb, is empty and recently formatted, the C drive partition, 20gb, has 6gb free.