Seagate

OK, soooooooo... I'm really finally sick and tired of my stupid computer not working right...

I picked me a new mobo and a new processor this morning on new egg. Got the OK to spend that much money. LOL and I was thinking to do it right, I should just go ahead and get a new hard drive as well. Then my emachine won't have any emachine parts left!! Since I will also be switching cases. So what do you guys think about Seagate hard drives??? Speak up and quick because I want to order this stuff today! (you know women.. we have no patience when it comes to shopping!!)

anyway here's the link:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822148139

And P.S. Atomm, I will be dropping a chunk of change on this so could you send the stuff on how to hook it to GRB?

I have had as good of luck with Seagates as any other drive. Seagates used to be premium drives, now they are no different than maxtor/western Digital. Looks like a good drive to me


ooo and I have had drives from all of them die, all drives have the potential to die, and it always sucks

Over 25 Years of experience with computers has lead me to like Western Digitals the best for consumer level HD's. Seagate has now purchased <edited>Maxtor so you should be good to go since they are now basically the same thing.

Just stay away from <edited>branded Maxtors. I have purchased tons of them for work over the years and use them all the time. When they work they seem okay but I have more of those go bad on me than any other brand. Just historically Maxtors seem to die on me more often. I do not hate them but would not purchase one for myself. I have always tried to get the WD drives when I could.

As Bubba said there are no guarantees with these things that one will "outlast" the others. Any drive from any manufacture can go bad.

My best advice is make sure when you put it in a case, keep a fan blowing over it. Heat is what will kill your HD faster than anything.

CompUSA Seagate
Seagate 160 7200 160 GB 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive
Click here for more details and picture $49.99 2/25/2007 -
3/3/2007 Price after $40 online rebate, $20 instant savings.

Staples Maxtor
Maxtor 160 7200 160GB 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive $59.98 2/25/2007 -
3/3/2007 None

Just a couple of listings from salescircular.com/texas today. I have all maxtor drives because they are always on sale, usally 200's for $40 to $50. They die often tho.

Looks like a sweet deal to me.

Sindy, one thing; are you sure that you want to use IDE instead of SATA? Just putting it out there. If your MB supports SATA you may as well just use that interface as everything is going that way anyway.

The problem though is installing XP fresh to a SATA MB can be a pain unless you have an install with SP2 already on it. Sometimes that does not even help.

SATA drives re not recognized by the XP install natively. You need a floppy disk with the controller driver on it. I can help you if you need it.

I give you tons of credit being willing to build your own system instead of just buying a new computer. If you need any help just ask here and we will be glad to help. Keep some computer running so you can post. 😉

I look at it this way Sindy, all hard drives will fail eventually.

However, I am looking at the 250MB SATA Seagate drive just like the one you posted.

Also, if you go to the front page of GR, then look on the right side under Sponsors, click the link that says:

Everything you want for your computer and more at Newegg.com.

Then place your order. 1-2% will come back to us at no charge to you.

Well, I hope that worked... However, I am sorry to say that I had to ditch the hard drive, becuz upon actually reading about the mobo I picked I had to get new RAM too... D'OH... Oh well, it had to be done! WOO HOO, now I'm gonna rock.. hopefully... Anyway, we should know in approx 3 business days! wOOOt! 🤘 🎉 🤬


Oh and Paladin, I have absolutely no clue how to rig up a sata. We have discussed that in the past when we were building my husbands, but it seems complicated and we didn't want to screw it up. hehe

Good Luck! I'm itching to upgrade but have no $$$ (and no real need) to do it 😒

Sarge wrote:
Good Luck! I'm itching to upgrade but have no $$$ (and no real need) to do it 😒

Sarge... you never have to have a real need to buy bad ass stuff for your computer... *smacks you on the back of the head* What are you thinking???? LOL 😆

ouch!

I know that you don't have to have a true need, but if I play it that way now, when I do have the true need, I will get the ok to do it instead of having to work for it. It's a devious plan, and it call for patience, but it's the only plan i've got 😆

Paladin wrote:
Over 25 Years of experience with computers has lead me to like Western Digitals the best for consumer level HD's. Seagate has now purchased WD so you should be good to go since they are now basically the same thing.

Just stay away from Maxtors. I have purchased tons of them for work over the years and use them all the time. When they work they seem okay but I have more of those go bad on me than any other brand. Just historically Maxtors seem to die on me more often. I do not hate them but would not purchase one for myself. I have always tried to get the WD drives when I could.

As Bubba said there are no guarantees with these things that one will "outlast" the others. Any drive from any manufacture can go bad.

My best advice is make sure when you put it in a case, keep a fan blowing over it. Heat is what will kill your HD faster than anything.

I was reading a Maximum PC this morning that says Seagate bought Maxtor, not Western Digital.

(Google search)

Yup, looks confirmed. Sorry 🙂

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:YSBZr...;cd=2&gl=us
Seems that every brand has it's supporters and haters. Best overall advice seems to be a few posts down in the link I posted: Buy the ones with the best warranty and keep backups, avoid the ones with 1-year or less warranty. If they don't warranty it for very long, they might know something we don't 😀


I have a fan in the front of my case blowing across my 2 hard drives. Dunno if it's helped like it's supposed to, but I feel better doing it!

Cindy, another subject, one that Atomm brought up with all of his hardware problems: If you frequently have power spikes, or notice your lights dim, you need an UPS battery backup. Don't HOPE you don't need it, don't WISH you don't need it. . .if you need it, you need it.

DocJon wrote:
I was reading a Maximum PC this morning that says Seagate bought Maxtor, not Western Digital.

(Google search)

Yup, looks confirmed. Sorry 🙂

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:YSBZr...;cd=2&gl=us
Seems that every brand has it's supporters and haters. Best overall advice seems to be a few posts down in the link I posted: Buy the ones with the best warranty and keep backups, avoid the ones with 1-year or less warranty. If they don't warranty it for very long, they might know something we don't 😀
I have a fan in the front of my case blowing across my 2 hard drives. Dunno if it's helped like it's supposed to, but I feel better doing it!

Cindy, another subject, one that Atomm brought up with all of his hardware problems: If you frequently have power spikes, or notice your lights dim, you need an UPS battery backup. Don't HOPE you don't need it, don't WISH you don't need it. . .if you need it, you need it.

Good point Doc... I will check them out around here before my new stuff gets here. And Sarge, that sounds like a great plan!!

So anyway here's links!! Don't pay too much attention though... Or you'll figure out how much I had to spend... LOL

Motherboard

Processor

looks like fun, enjoy the assembly... :-)

sindy wrote:
Good point Doc... I will check them out around here before my new stuff gets here. And Sarge, that sounds like a great plan!!

So anyway here's links!! Don't pay too much attention though... Or you'll figure out how much I had to spend... LOL

Motherboard

Processor

Looks like that board prefers Sata as it only has one IDE connector. I'd pickup a Sata drive, do a XP repair with your old IDE to get the drivers installed, then clone the Sata from it and then make it active.

DocJon wrote:
I was reading a Maximum PC this morning that says Seagate bought Maxtor, not Western Digital.

(Google search)

Yup, looks confirmed. Sorry 🙂

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:YSBZr...;cd=2&gl=us
Seems that every brand has it's supporters and haters. Best overall advice seems to be a few posts down in the link I posted: Buy the ones with the best warranty and keep backups, avoid the ones with 1-year or less warranty. If they don't warranty it for very long, they might know something we don't 😀
I have a fan in the front of my case blowing across my 2 hard drives. Dunno if it's helped like it's supposed to, but I feel better doing it!

Yea typo sorry. What I meant is that Seagate bought Maxtor so it probably won't matter now that they will be the same. At least I hope so. Stay away from the Maxtor branded ones. As you said everyone has had different experiences, these are just mine.

Sindy, ALWAYS use a UPS if you can. Always. I think power fluctuations are key to HD failure.

Nice going Sindy..... And just what do you plan on doing with those 3 Video Card slots? Hmmmmmm......? 😈

I know you had to get memory, but I agree about the hard drive. You really want to pick up a SATA, even if it's one of the lower end ones. Just make sure it's a 3.0GB version.

And stay away from Vista..... 😛

Thanks for using our link! :-)

<Homer>mmmmm 3 video card slots... {drifts off to a world of video cards and porcupines) </homer>

Great, now he's going after mobo's too....

Atomm wrote:
Nice going Sindy..... And just what do you plan on doing with those 3 Video Card slots? Hmmmmmm......? 😈

I know you had to get memory, but I agree about the hard drive. You really want to pick up a SATA, even if it's one of the lower end ones. Just make sure it's a 3.0GB version.

And stay away from Vista..... 😛

Thanks for using our link! :-)

Sorry since when does duel mean 3??

"This amazing motherboard supports up to 16 GB of DDR2 RAM, and dual PCI Express x16 slots to churn out ultra-realistic graphics for your games."

You can only use two PCI-E x16 slots for SLI or Crossfire. This MB is SLI BTW Sindy so get an SLI ready Nvideo video card for it if you are buying a new card. That way later on you can get another one and run them in SLI mode. An ATI card will still work just fine running in normal mode. ATI CF ready cards need a crossfire MB not SLI to use two cards at once, thats all.

The PCI-E x8 slot would not really be as good for primary Video but "may" be used to add a 2nd card for a 3rd monitor (primary cards usually support 2 these days) if you only have ONE PCI-E x16 video card installed.

Some MB's are designed that you cannot use both 16X slots as well as the 8X slot as the 16 and 8 slot share the same space. This really depends on the MB though. If you can, two 16X and one 8X slots would not help for any gaming application.


It is a very nice MB, I like GIGABYTE MB's. 😉

Atomm wrote:
Great, now he's going after mobo's too....

Hey I thought it was a step up... at least this part has a slot...

Yeah... the whole SATA thing just kinda slipped passed me yesterday... LOL So, I will be getting a new hard drive, but I'm just gonna pick up one here at Best Buy. I saw a 160 gig last night while I was out there buying a new router... The other one chose yesterday to crap out... *sigh* So, basically I just built myself a whole new computer... D'OH... Not what I planned, but it'll work. I will have to post some pics when I get it all in the case, but it will be super cool with the sexay purple fans and LED's!!

Oh and whoever wants to write up the SATA for dummies guide is more than welcome too... LOL This should be a fun and interesting experience... 😳 😕

And good thinking Bubba, slots are important... 😛

sindy wrote:
Yeah... the whole SATA thing just kinda slipped passed me yesterday... LOL So, I will be getting a new hard drive, but I'm just gonna pick up one here at Best Buy. I saw a 160 gig last night while I was out there buying a new router... The other one chose yesterday to crap out... *sigh* So, basically I just built myself a whole new computer... D'OH... Not what I planned, but it'll work. I will have to post some pics when I get it all in the case, but it will be super cool with the sexay purple fans and LED's!!

Oh and whoever wants to write up the SATA for dummies guide is more than welcome too... LOL This should be a fun and interesting experience... 😳 😕

And good thinking Bubba, slots are important... 😛

SATA is too easy to worry about Sindy. The manual in the box with the srive will be enough. The one thing you might have to consider, is if your power supply is older it may not have sata power connectors. You can get adapter from the old drive connectors (Molex) to the new power connectors, they are real cheap I keep a handful on hand. Also if for some reason your sata drive has both new SATA power and old Molex power, DO NOT CONNECT BOTH.

here is a basic guide. http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/940/

I will post some pics here tonight of some drives hooked up correctly

Sindy, one thing you might be concerned about is your copy of Windows XP may not work with your new system. Since it was a EMachine, it could be a recovery disk and not have all the drivers.

Atomm has a good point. Not only the idea of drivers, but it was probably an OEM version that needs to see the Emachines cmos to work.

And also consider another problem might be.... the world could end tomorrow.

I feel like we are predicting doomsday. One way or another we will get you through it... I hope. And as an upside maybe your teamspeak will work properly on the new install.

Bubba brings up a good point in the power supply. What video card are you using? Did you buy a new one? Some video cards will require power to be connect directly to them. Most use standard Molex plugs (the normal white ones you find in your case) which is good but you really need to make sure you have a good 400+watt power supply. There are adapters that sometimes come with the SATA HD to adapt the power. Some drives, as Bubba said, have both connectors for power though this is getting to be less and less common as SATA has been out a bit now.

SATA is very easy as far as physically connecting it to the PC. Where the fun starts is installing XP.
Seriously it is very easy. 😉
What version of XP do you have and is it OEM (Did it comes with the computer) or retail version?

Either way you will simply need a floppy with the SATA controller chip Preinstall driver on it. You should be able to DL this from the web site.

Here I found it for you.

Driver page in case you ned anything else:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherb...me=GA-M59SLI-S5

Direct link for floppy driver:
http://europe.giga-byte.com/FileList/Drive...bootdisk_32.exe

Just run that file and let it create a floppy. It will format it so do not use one with anything important on it.

When booting from the XP CD you will see a message in the very beginning of the install to press F6 for addition drivers, press it. It will not seem like you did anything but in a min it should come up with a screen that asks you to specify additional drivers. You hit "S" to specify them, insert the floppy, press return and it will load them from the floppy. It will probably give you multiple choices like STD or whatever along with one for RAID. Choose the first one, not the RAID one.

That's it. You will know it works if the XP install sees the HD in your system to install to.

The rest should be easy.

Actually guys... Emachines are way too cheap to come with any disk's... they come with a recovery partition that my husband promptly deleted when he upgraded the windows on it from home to pro. SOOOOOOOO we don't have to worry about that. I am gonna call my brother though and get another copy of XP so that I'm not running a cracked copy anymore... He's gonna be pretty pissed when he finds out.. LOL

And dang... I didn't think about my power supply either... D'OH... it's not old... but I don't have a clue what we did with the box and stuff... If we do still have the SATA connectors they are in it.... It's an Antec truepower 450 or 400 i think...

*smacks myself of the forehead...* Dangit... why didn't you guys say: sindy... are you sure you know what you're doing? I would've said yes, but I might have thought about it a little more... LOL 🙄

Bubbaspanky wrote:
I feel like we are predicting doomsday. One way or another we will get you through it... I hope. And as an upside maybe your teamspeak will work properly on the new install.

Her Teamspeak works fine. She just sounds that way.
(.wav links,work-safe)

http://members.tripod.com/~smokeyjoes/memememe.wav

http://members.tripod.com/~smokeyjoes/attractv.wav

😆

sindy wrote:
And dang... I didn't think about my power supply either... D'OH... it's not old... but I don't have a clue what we did with the box and stuff... If we do still have the SATA connectors they are in it....

There should be both a data and power cable in the Sata harddrive box. Addon drives usually give you much more than you need.

HAHAHAHHA! Doc, those are great...

And I must say that if you look at these 3 posts in a row, these are definitely the cutest avatars to grace the GRB forums!!!

And I hope so Lexx, I hope so... Becuz I'm old now and my brain doesn't remember things like it used too... I have all the boxes with all the stuff that wasn't used for everything on my computer, like the unused plugs for my Vid card, sound card, etc... It's just locating them that is the issue. JOY!

You may want to just go and buy a shiny new case for the new computer.

Ohhh that new computer smell... 🙂

Paladin wrote:
You may want to just go and buy a shiny new case for the new computer.

Ohhh that new computer smell... 🙂

Hmmm, come to think of it, I bought an EMachine for daugther last year, the case is really small, mini mobo sized. You may want to make sure the mobo your buying even fits in your old case.

Probably won't!

Also, I meant if you buy a new Sata drive, the power and data cables will probably be in the package unless its OEM. They definately will be included with your new motherboard tho.

All of this will be going in a case that my husband modified with purple fans and LED's just for me! hehe And yeah it will take the new stuff with no problem. That's another thing that I had to get was CD and DVD drives for that case too. That's one of the only reason's I haven't been using it, because I didn't want to put my non-matching drive from the emachine case in the new case. I said earlier somewhere that I'll post some pictures of it when it's done! Pay attention!! LOL 😛

Oh and if my teamspeak and vent don't work right after this.... a;lkfnmaz.dnfz;ldfjapiooefja;cxlnvcza,cmnz.,mcfnap;eaui;doijfa;lxcm,m.z,dc;paoei

I will have to find a way to exact an evil yet non-malicious plan against their creators...

OK, so everything is assembled... Now just to see if it's gonna run stably. I know that you guys are gonna spank me... But I'm running Vista... *flinches and waits to get hit* 😆

But, although I'm getting used to it, I think it's pretty cool. It runs faster than XP and I mean, that's what it was designed to do. So once I figure out where they have moved everything to and whatnot I think I'm gonna like it. And none of my sounds have ever sounded sooooooo good!! 🍻 🤘

Are you using your Creative Labs soundcard?

Atomm wrote:
Are you using your Creative Labs soundcard?

Yeah, I'm still using the X-Fi. There are beta drivers out for it for Vista. It was a pain to get it to work, but I do believe that both my TS and Vent are working now!!!! YAY!!! That makes me happy since that was my whole purpose!!! 💗 I'm liking this set-up alot!!! It's running fast and smooth, it's almost... well I won't say... but it's nice. Now I just need to get BF2 and 2142 installed and deal with all the probs I saw about both of them and sound and Vista while I was scouring forums to try and get the soundcard right...

Apparently BF2 doesn't like the X-FI and 2142 doesn't like Vista... SOOOOOOO JOY!!

I have 5 external HD's at home. 1 Maxtor, 4 WD's. One has a bad block. Guess which one. 🙂

Sindy running Vista is just fine. I was going to suggest it but knew of the problems with sound cards and some games etc...
Also the cost of it is very high. That probably hurt. 🙂

I also did not want to put you in a position where I could not help you much.

You will get it worked out. If you do have any questions, please feel free to ask. I will see what I can do for you.

hi,

i thought i'd say hello to everyone. i'm new here.

veronica

veronicaflowers wrote:
hi,

i thought i'd say hello to everyone. i'm new here.

veronica

Hello Veronica, welcome to Gamers Radio. I hope you find something interesting here to chat about. We're a bunch of tech geeks and gamers, with an interest in music. . .and just about everything else. If you have any questions, just ask. If you have a take on something we're BS'ing about, jump in!

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Hope to see you around.

veronicaflowers wrote:
hi,

i thought i'd say hello to everyone. i'm new here.

veronica

Welcome! When I approved your account I was hoping you weren't a spammer. Glad to see that so far you are not 😀

Edit: Initial thoughts were wrong. Did some more checking and found that the above poster had made the exact same single post on at least a dozen other forums. Bye!