I just bought an old tower and need a new hard drive

[thor984]

I just bought a computer tower second hand and I just got it to boot up. I looked in the bios and its hard drive has a total size of 1.28 GB. It is also old enough that modern hard drives won't work with it. What should I do. I am hoping to keep it as a second computer.

[Kanna]

2 minutes ago, thor984 said:

I just bought a computer tower second hand and I just got it to boot up. I looked in the bios and its hard drive has a total size of 1.28 GB. It is also old enough that modern hard drives won't work with it. What should I do. I am hoping to keep it as a second computer.

Exactly how old is the case? Can I get an image?

[thor984]

I have no clue how old it is. it runs what looks like first gen windows XP

[Dutch_Master]

What type of connector does the HDD have? Are they small or large with a wide, thin ribbon attached to it? Images would be good indeed.

Also, worth noting that if the machine is older then an Intel Core2 proc, it's not very useful anymore. If the proc is as old as the installed Win-XP suggests, consider a hardware upgrade.

[thor984]

I sadly have no way to take pics. it has a ribbon cable that has pins instead of the usb style that they have now.

[Kanna]

26 minutes ago, thor984 said:

I sadly have no way to take pics. it has a ribbon cable that has pins instead of the usb style that they have now.

Then there is no use for it since that's an old connector

[Dutch_Master]

I concur: it's an IDE connector, which has been replaced over the last decade by the SATA and more recently M.2 interfaces.

[thor984]

So, long story short, I'm screwed for finding a better hard drive?

[Dutch_Master]

In a word, yes. Although you may still find an IDE HDD and your new purchase will work with that, given the processing power of the proc I doubt it'll be very useful. I do know that it'll be very slow in everything you do on it.

 

But, all is not lost just yet! I noticed Newegg has a category of embedded mainboards, which is a good start. The cheapest option I could find was an AMD-A6 based replacement mainboard, with a single 8GB RAM stick (DDR3) and a 120GB SSD for less then $100 US (and including shipping, but that'll depend on your location) You may need to add a SATA cable and some Molex-to-SATA adapters for power. Hunt around, you may find better deals.

[LunaP0n3]

IDE to SATA adaptor boards exist that translate the two standards to a new drive. Just don't expect SATA like speeds out of the IDE standard though.

Haven't used them at all so can't recommend any particular board.