Hard Drive Question

I have a two year old Dell computer and bought a new 19 inch Samsung monitor for it. It replaced the 15 inch monitor that came with the unit.

When the computer guy was installing the monitor I asked him to perform some diagnostic tests because my computer was making a lot of noise (like a fan but loud) and was freezing up more than usual.

He said I needed a new hard drive and charged me $165.00 , ninety nine dollars for the hard drive, and sixty six dollars for transferring the information and installing the new one.

It seems faster, quieter, and more efficient.


Did i do ok?

help

Thank you.

Is it SATA? SATA2? EIDE?

No matter what it is, he charged you a lot for it. Here's a sampling of hard drives at NewEgg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Order=PRICED&SrchInDesc=80gb&Page=1&Category=15&N=2010150014&Submit=ENE&Nty=1&Subcategory=14

reinstall.

Although you should learn to do a full reinstall yourself and save money. ;)

Also, a hard drive is not all that complicated to install. If it's IDE (or some variant thereof) and you have more than one drive on the same cable you have to futz around with a jumper or two, but otherwise it's mostly just plug it in and start installing stuff. I'm sure you watched the guy do it all.

I'm not totally sure what people are charging now. I've never done computer work for homeowners, just businesses. (besides free repairs for friends)

For $165, it better be big and new.

Is it SATA2 (3GB/s), SATA1 (1.5GB/s), UltraDMA 133, UltraDMA 100, UltraDMA 66, SCSI, SCSI2? How big is the drive's capacity? How big is the cache?

It might be worth $165, but to be honest, you probably could have found "good enough" at Newegg if you're willing to install it yourself.

I'm not surprised it went belly up. The hard drive and PSU fan are the two most likely things to fail on a computer (both have moving parts and get abused).

Now, if your PSU fan ever starts making funny noises, pay attention. Put your hand behind the computer and make sure the PSU fan is actually moving air. If the PSU starts going bad, you could be in trouble because the PSU is the only piece of hardware in your computer that can cause other pieces of hardware in your computer to break (the first thing to go in that case is usually RAM, followed by the CPU and motherboard).

It's a Western Digital...

That's competitive with retail prices, then.

It was really loud and was crashing a lot.

Cheaper than a new tower...

The fan was making so much noise.

Always a indication to back up your data quick.

That's what the computer guy said.

blown dust out of the fan while he was in there.

It's quiet now.

I like my new nineteen inch monitor... That was a bargain.. $219.00 for a Samsung which I bought myself.