ATA Laptop HDD

TonyA

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Hi, I have a fairly old Laptop which works just fine, but am looking to upgrade the HDD. It is an ATA drive, does anyone know where I could get a 250 + ATA HDD for this laptop?
Many Thanks
 
Hey Hey

TonyA, if it is an old P-ATA drive, which I am sure you meant it is, then be prepared to pay a whackload of cash for it. I recently looked for an older laptop P-ATA / IDE drive and the biggest I could get, that they had in stock, was a 160GB drive that ranged in price from R980 to R1699.

EDIT: What make / model laptop is it ??
 
Last edited:
Found one in stock on Kalahari

http://www.kalahari.com/electronics/Western-Digital-250GB-PATA-IDE-2-5-HDD/4585/35378445.aspx

Western Digital 250GB PATA / IDE 2.5" HDD
Brand: Western Digital Elements
Format:Hard drive
Now: R1,222.95

WD Scorpio mobile hard drives deliver best-in-class performance with low power consumption and cool operation.
In addition, you’ll get one of the quietest 2.5-inch drives on the market with real-time data protection technology to help keep your data safe.

Product features:
Fast and efficient - With 5400 RPM spin speed, 12 ms access time, and up to 3 Gb/s SATA transfer rate, even the most demanding customer will appreciate the performance achieved by WD Scorpio drives.
Quiet - In a notebook drive, silence is golden. WD’s exclusive WhisperDrive combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms to yield one of the quietest 2.5-inch hard drives on the market. Optimizing the way a drive seeks for data also aids significantly in saving power. So now silence (and longer battery life) is golden.
Reliable and Rugged - WD’s ShockGuard technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks. WD’s SecurePark parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long-term reliability due to less head wear and improved non-operational shock tolerance.
Tested for Compatibility - We perform tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in our FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems.
 
Just get one on eBay - millions of them out there.

Hey South_Bit...

I always feel a bit nervous about eBay and older hard drives... safe and reliable enough to do so ?

I tend to worry about returns and stuff.
 
It's a bit of gamble, but I would rather gamble a few hundred bucks than blow over a grand for a new IDE drive. Shipping would be the biggest cost, so I'd get 2 IDE drives from the same seller so he can ship them together.

I've ordered a very large amount of drives through eBay and only had problems with about 5% of them.
 
Hey Hey

TonyA, if it is an old P-ATA drive, which I am sure you meant it is, then be prepared to pay a whackload of cash for it. I recently looked for an older laptop P-ATA / IDE drive and the biggest I could get, that they had in stock, was a 160GB drive that ranged in price from R980 to R1699.

EDIT: What make / model laptop is it ??
The laptop is a Mecer and only has a 20 gb HDD, been using a 250 gb wd external, but want to upgrade programs eg office etc. IDE drives seem so expensive!
 
The laptop is a Mecer and only has a 20 gb HDD, been using a 250 gb wd external, but want to upgrade programs eg office etc. IDE drives seem so expensive!

Yikes... 20GB ! Ouch. How old is it ? It sound like it is 10 years old... I cannot remember when last I saw a laptop with anything smaller than an 80GB drive... in the last 10 years at least. Maybe give South_Bit a PM and see if he cannot sell you one of his eBay bargains at a nice price ? Or maybe go the eBay route as he suggested.

I would perhaps put the money towards replacing the laptop in a few months time.
 
@ OP
If I was in your shoes, I would buy a KingSpec 32GB or 64GB IDE (PATA) SSD from eBay and still use the external HDD for storage purposes (or a large capacity thumb drive)
If you're thinking of spending minimum R1.2k on a new 250GB laptop drive, rather go SSD route and get a speed boost, particularly that your laptop is an older model.
;)
 
Why not buy a new laptop? I'm sure that even the most basic R3k options would be a major upgrade from something that's around a decade old.
 
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