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jonnysos11

so im walking to the park to day with my daughter and in somones trash is three computers. monitors and al. one being a high def sony 19 inch

1. pentium 4 sony viao
2. pentium 4 compaq
3. gateway gm5260

none of these have hard drives the owner said he smashed with a hammer which i confermed when i opened them. i want to get the gateway going but what do i need to know about the hard drive in this thing to get it working. the hard drive was still in the comp and i pulled the sticker off of it. can i put the hard drive in my current computer without to many issues? i know their will be some driver problems but i can figure that out. also the sata cable needs to be replaced but everything else is in good shape. any info would be greatly appreciated. thanks
jonny

ps nothing wrong with trash diggin!

Lord Chance

Originally Posted by jonnysos11

so im walking to the park to day with my daughter and in somones trash is three computers. monitors and al. one being a high def sony 19 inch
1. pentium 4 sony viao
2. pentium 4 compaq
3. gateway gm5260

none of these have hard drives the owner said he smashed with a hammer which i confermed when i opened them. i want to get the gateway going but what do i need to know about the hard drive in this thing to get it working. the hard drive was still in the comp and i pulled the sticker off of it. can i put the hard drive in my current computer without to many issues? i know their will be some driver problems but i can figure that out. also the sata cable needs to be replaced but everything else is in good shape. any info would be greatly appreciated. thanks
jonny

ps nothing wrong with trash diggin!

You have made a major haul there JonnySOS11. I have looked at the spec for the Gateway and it is very nice. Replacing the hard drive is easy enough. It just depends on what you can afford...It came with a 320gig SATA. As for the drivers for the machine, Please go to the link below to see it the PC on the page is like what you have. If so then it is a good bet you can get the drivers there.

Link:Gateway GM5260

Good Luck
LC

jonnysos11

yep thats the computer. im pretty happy bout my find as well. insted of buying a new hard drive for can i put anything i want in their or is it kinda like adding ram? need specific ram for certain computer. inturn need certain hard drive for this comp cant just use the maxtor i have in my current machine?

Lord Chance

Originally Posted by jonnysos11

yep thats the computer. im pretty happy bout my find as well. insted of buying a new hard drive for can i put anything i want in their or is it kinda like adding ram? need specific ram for certain computer. inturn need certain hard drive for this comp cant just use the maxtor i have in my current machine?

I would stay with the SATA drive but brand or size doesn't matter. I really advise against used drives unless it has very low usage. Hard drives are cheap. I bought a 160gig Western Digital IDE drive at Wal Mart for 79 dollars. SATA drives are sometimes cheaper. Without knowing what the motherboard is, It would be difficult to say what setup to use if you used the Maxtor. It can be done but would most likely cause a reformat and installation of the OS. The new drive is your easiest way out but I am at your servive whatever you decide.

LC

jonnysos11

i appreciate the input.

i tried to conect my hard drive in my current machine to the slave spot on the ATA ribon. but it only worked with a old 20gig hard drive i took out of an old HP with win 98 on it.

so if i connect the new hard drive through the SATA cable is their any way to connect my other hard drive to the SATA conected hard drive? maybe with ATA cable?i just hate to reformat when i just went through that on the current machine. also ive heard to run a seperate hard drive for your OS will keep it running smooth. true or false?

thanks again.
jonny