What size hard drive?

Auburn · 03-09-2006 9:45pm #1

I have an old computer that I'm going to format and use for storage. I want to put a bigger hard drive in it but I'm not sure how much it would handle. It's a Pentium 3 450 Mhz machine, will probably run XP Pro or Windows 2000. Any advice? Thanks

Bob the Builder · 03-09-2006 10:06pm

I think you should put max. 120GB into an old machine, As I'm sure you know cheap large HD's can be found everywhere, Its a matter of making sure they're compatible with your system.

Also, try Debian Linux. It's a Linux Distro that work's well with old systems and on top of XP/Windows and it is very innovative to your needs

Just my opinion to be honest. In any event, G'Luck!

Ruu_Old · 03-09-2006 10:11pm

Any idea what the make/model of the motherboard is, some of us can probably verify what size your system can handle? Stick Windows XP on it, will be grand.

PogMoThoin · 03-09-2006 10:17pm

I wouldn't put Xp on it unless you got more than 256mb of ram. It'd run so slowly it'd drive you mad.

Auburn · 03-09-2006 10:26pm

Ruu wrote:

Any idea what the make/model of the motherboard is, some of us can probably verify what size your system can handle? Stick Windows XP on it, will be grand.

No sorry, I have no idea, I can't see any markings to identify it

PogMoThoin wrote:

I wouldn't put Xp on it unless you got more than 256mb of ram. It'd run so slowly it'd drive you mad.

As far as I can remember it has 192mb of ram. I wouldn't be doing much with it so it won't bother me if it's a bit slow. I can always upgrade the ram if it annoys me too much I suppose

Auburn · 03-09-2006 10:40pm

nevf wrote:

I think you should put max. 120GB into an old machine, As I'm sure you know cheap large HD's can be found everywhere, Its a matter of making sure they're compatible with your system.

Cool, that would keep me going for a while

Thanks

Capt'n Midnight · 03-09-2006 10:46pm

no point in putting XP on it.
OEM licenses can't be put on it.
Upgrade licenses would be bound to the PC if the previous OS was OEM

a transferrable XP license is worth far more than the PC.

2000 would be a better choice especially if it was originally supplied with the PC.

If only using for storage a Linux OS might be a better choice since it's far better at running without a GUI (disable keyboard errors in the BIOS) , for windows a monitor and a keyboard are pretty well essential for those all to frequent "press any key to continue" moments. You can install VNC and other remote tools , pskill is also very useful

finally the main difference between XP and 2000 is the extra bloat and eye-candy, XP has a firewall , but even NT4 allows you to block by port in TCP/IP properties. or just leave out the gateway or use NetBios instead

phil · 04-09-2006 7:43am

Keep away from Debian unless you know what you're doing or expect to have a bit of time on your hands (a bit = a lot) to play with it.

Something like Ubuntu would be a much easier place to start from.

Phil.

SeanW · 04-09-2006 3:34pm

Whatever you put into it (big hard drive or Win XP) would be worth more than the computer itself. Only real difference between XP and 2K is the level of bloatware and the Playskool GUI.

Also you will definately be limited to IDE architechture, so don't buy a SATA hard drive.

Khannie · 05-09-2006 9:16am

120G is a good choice. After that point, you're relying on hardware support for 48bit addressing, which is probably not there on such an old machine.

I have win2k running on a p2 450 with 256M of ram at home (just installed it last week). It's running grand. 2k is definitely a better choice than xp for a low end machine IMO.

What size hard drive?

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