[coop23]

I have a intel pentium III computer with 512mb ram operating windows xp and the motherboard is ASUSTek model CusL2 and the hard drive in it right now is only 20 GB...what are some of the things i need to know before upgrading? is there away to find out how much capacity on a hard drive i can add to the computer? if anyone can give me info on how to go about upgrading my hard drive that would be great..Would i be able to put a another hard drive in that has 80GB?

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about the only thing you'd need to worry about is the connections to the hard drive...if you've got a PIII processor i doubt you've got SATA connections on your motherboard...so look for a PATA drive (probably labled as IDE or EIDE....all the same thing just different names)....an 80 gig drive would work fine in your system for sure....some older BIOS setups won't allow really large drives...but that just requires a bios update...but 80 gig would be fine if that's all you need

[dsenette]

about the only thing you'd need to worry about is the connections to the hard drive...if you've got a PIII processor i doubt you've got SATA connections on your motherboard...so look for a PATA drive (probably labled as IDE or EIDE....all the same thing just different names)....an 80 gig drive would work fine in your system for sure....some older BIOS setups won't allow really large drives...but that just requires a bios update...but 80 gig would be fine if that's all you need

[coop23]

I actually have a hard drive out of a compaq presario s3300nx which i haven't ripped apart yet but says 120 gb ultra DMA hard drive...would that work with what i have? not sure of the connections yet though as i haven't took anything apart

[dsenette]

assuming that it's an IDE drive (and if it's a SATA that you don't have SATA ports on your current PC) it should work...

[coop23]

once i get a hard drive that is compatible with the connections i have can i just run it as a 2nd hard drive so have the computer have to hard drives?

[dsenette]

yes yes you can....once you get the drive (this is easier to explain when you can look at everything) if you're having problems getting it installed as a slave drive...let us know

[coop23]

k i have the drive in and it is running as the slave drive...there is alot of files and programs i no longer know what they are used on there for..some programs i want left on that drive...is it fine to clean the drive out or should i leave it be? now that i have the second hard drive there is an additonal drive fat32 displaying as a f drive..should i leave that as well?