Desktop memory

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Dave Taylor
sorry wrong title. (And as usual, cannot change in vbulletin.)

Friend has a Dell, the current specs are
40gB hd
1.25gB ram
2.66gH processor
Win xp home
SP3
"Pentium R 4CPU DIM 2400"

The hd is full.

What do I need to find out, in order to order a larger compatible hd?
 
It's needs more RAM, too. Just watch http://woot.com and buy the next system that shows up for under $400. http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=4031886

To answer your question, you just need to know if it's an SATA or IDE/ATA hard drive.. I'll bet ATA.

Replacing the drive is easy. Getting Windows on it and the existing stuff copied is not.

You can just add a drive and start putting stuff on drive D:.

If you get a retail kit in a box, the drive will come with instructions on how to install it.
 
There's a 2 GB limit on RAM on that mobo, Mike. He already has 1.25 GB. I frankly wonder if he'll see much improvement upgrading to 2GB unless he's doing resource-intensive work, in which case he probably should be looking to retire that venerable Dimension 2400, anyway.

-Rich
 
you missed i said winxp.
Yes I am pushing for complete new. If we are talking >....$150 to upgrade...better to replace, no?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
you missed i said winxp.
Yes I am pushing for complete new. If we are talking >....$150 to upgrade...better to replace, no?
Click to expand...

You can do the upgrade for about $50.00 if you live near a MicroCenter or similar place. Buy a good-quality OEM drive and download the ISO of a free hard-drive cloning tool (or borrow one from your local geeky friend).

-Rich

EDIT: The only hitch would be that many Dimension 2400's came with a single-drive EIDE cable. I guess they saved a few pennies that way. To clone the drive you'll need to replace it with a standard, two-drive EIDE cable, which costs about three bucks. Or ask your local geek for one. He probably has a hundred of them in the bottom draw of his desk.
 
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So if I buy a hd upgrade, can I use my CMS BounceBack program and enclosure (which worked great to upgrade two laptops) to image the hd? With the cable you mention?

RJM62 said:
You can do the upgrade for about $50.00 if you live near a MicroCenter or similar place. Buy a good-quality OEM drive and download the ISO of a free hard-drive cloning tool (or borrow one from your local geeky friend).

-Rich

EDIT: The only hitch would be that many Dimension 2400's came with a single-drive EIDE cable. I guess they saved a few pennies that way. To clone the drive you'll need to replace it with a standard, two-drive EIDE cable, which costs about three bucks. Or ask your local geek for one. He probably has a hundred of them in the bottom draw of his desk.
Click to expand...
 
You know, when the Dimension 2400 came out, it had mediocre reviews. It was considered a "budget" machine. But I still come across quite a few of them that get little maintenance other than an annual tune-up.

Sometimes I take these old machines when they're finally retired, install new HD's, install Ubuntu on them, and give them away to local charities or needy families.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
You know, when the Dimension 2400 came out, it had mediocre reviews. It was considered a "budget" machine. But I still come across quite a few of them that get little maintenance other than an annual tune-up.

Sometimes I take these old machines when they're finally retired, install new HD's, install Ubuntu on them, and give them away to local charities or needy families.
-Rich
Click to expand...

That is just plain mean and cruel...
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
So if I buy a hd upgrade, can I use my CMS BounceBack program and enclosure (which worked great to upgrade two laptops) to image the hd? With the cable you mention?
Click to expand...

I think with BounceBack, you won't even need the cable. That copies to the external enclosure, and then back to the internal, doesn't it? I'm not real familiar with it.

If so, however, then all you would have to do would be swap the new drive into the system once the external copy is made, then boot into the external and copy it back to the new internal. I'm not sure of the advantage of doing it that way on a desktop (which, unlike most laptops, can accommodate two hard drives), but it should work.

-Rich
 
Henning said:
That is just plain mean and cruel...
Click to expand...

They love it, Henning. Every kid in my extended family prefers Ubuntu to Windows, probably because I load hundreds of games and educational programs on the systems.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I think with BounceBack, you won't even need the cable. That copies to the external enclosure, and then back to the internal, doesn't it? I'm not real familiar with it.
-Rich
Click to expand...

No, the new HD is placed in the enclosure during the transfer and then the HDs are swapped out.



a quick googling shows the max hd available to be 80gb for this desktop (t or f?)

If so, not sure this is a reasonable purchase.

PS what limits a computer's hd capacity?
 
Timing is everything. That's a good deal, would take care of Johnny for the next five years.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
No, the new HD is placed in the enclosure during the transfer and then the HDs are swapped out.



a quick googling shows the max hd available to be 80gb for this desktop (t or f?)

If so, not sure this is a reasonable purchase.

PS what limits a computer's hd capacity?
Click to expand...

Well, you can get a decent-quality OEM PATA drive for $50.00 - $60.00 if you look around. You'll get just the drive: no fancy box, software, cables, or anything else except (maybe) the mounting screws. You clone to it and swap it into the computer, and maybe stretch it's life until XP is out of support (anticipated to be in 2014, I think) if that's what you want to do. Easy and cheap -- assuming nothing else goes wrong with the machine between now and then.

Of course, something else might go wrong between now and then. Likely candidates for failure include the power supply, and possibly the processor or some motherboard component. Anything that moves or gets hot has a lifespan. So it's a gamble. The machine may also continue to obsolesce between now and then as newer applications stress its resources, and others are not supported on the platform. So there's an argument for replacement, as well.

As for the size of the drive, I don't think a Dimension 2400 has any particular limiting factors. I know I've put 250 GB drives in a bunch of them with no issues.

-Rich

EDIT: And once XP support expires, you can put Ubuntu on it and give it to Henning.
 
I am going to push for new puter, the selfish advantage is less 'messing with that which I know little'. Tks.
 
Another option would be to put at SATA card in there, the dimensions have a single PCI slot inside that would accept the card - if I remember correctly. SATA cards can be had for cheap these days. That way you can keep the old ATA drive in there, install a new SATA drive and do your clone.

XP has built in drivers for most of the SATA cards. If it doesn't the SATA card will come with its' own driver.

Just another option.

Ubunutu is a four letter work in the IT industry.
 
vshortt said:
What are you doing? following me around trying to pick a fight or something?

Dude, step off.... even linux-mag.com agreed, Ubunutu IS A JOKE

http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7600
Click to expand...
You said Ubuntu was a "four letter word" in the IT industry. You don't expect someone to question that? Because that's clearly not the opinion of the entire industry. More and more commercial vendors are supporting it.

That article didn't say Ubuntu was a "four letter word" in the industry nor did it say they were a total joke. Instead it pointed out an issues with one of their releases. It was also written by a guy who made his own distribution so his opinion is biased. Ubuntu is a highly successful Linux distribution that has done a better job at bringing Linux to the masses then anyone else have. Yeah, it's not perfect, but it's one of the best distributions there is. Perhaps that speaks poorly on the other ones.

Could you point me to the distributions that aren't jokes? Clearly I'm not familiar with the area I know the most about.

I would love to see you hand the installation media from several of the major distributions to someone that knows nothing about Linux and ask them which one worked better for them. Hands down it'll be Ubuntu.

Do I *agree* with everything that Ubuntu has done? Nope. Are they my Linux server distribution of choice? Nope. Would I say their distribution is a joke? Nope. They've succeeded in a lot of other areas where everyone else has failed miserably.
 
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I dunno... my 10-year-old goddaughter has done dozens of Ubuntu installations (and a few upgrades), and uses it as her preferred OS on a dual-boot machine. She only boots into Windows when she wants to use Netflix.

She also knows how to keep the system up-to-date, install and uninstall software, and so forth. Rarely does she ever have to call me for tech support. Yeah, okay, she did work with me last summer, which gives her an advantage over most users. But still, we're talking about a 10-year-old.

So I really have to raise my eyebrows when people talk about installation issues and so forth with Ubuntu.

-Rich
 
jesse said:
...
Could you point me to the distributions that aren't jokes? Clearly I'm not familiar with the area I know the most about.
Click to expand...

pardon me for interrupting with a question...

Do you consider Redhat distros to be jokes?
 
Bob Noel said:
pardon me for interrupting with a question...

Do you consider Redhat distros to be jokes?
Click to expand...
Nope. I use Red Hat Enterprise quite a bit. Although I'm rather frustrated with the delay on the release of RHEL 6.

If someone knew nothing about Linux and wanted to use it - I would hand them an Ubuntu CD over a RHEL or Fedora CD any day.
 
I've got a couple of machines at work running Fedora 13. One will eventually be used as a DHCP server, the other I just play with.
 
I fairly often install Ubuntu on clients' machines, and haven't had any complaints about it yet. I have a few small businesses using it exclusively or nearly-so, and I've installed it on many residential clients' kids' machines, as well as on a lot of machines in child care centers and schools. The kids love the games, there's plenty of free (and excellent) educational software, and the systems are practically bulletproof as long as the kids don't have admin privileges. It's also easy enough to administer that a reasonably savvy adult can be taught to do all the routine stuff.

That's how my goddaughter got so good at doing the installs. She would do the Ubuntu installation, and then use Synaptic to download and install the zillions of games and educational apps, and finally teach the adult users (or older kids) how to do updates, install and uninstall software, and so forth.

It's far from perfect, but Ubuntu is about as close to being ready for the masses as any Linux distro out there. I'd say SimplyMEPIS is second (and probably has the edge on Kubuntu for those who want KDE). But I still use RHEL on my Web servers because it's the best distro, in my opinion, for that purpose; just as I still use XP for Web development, despite having Vista and Win7 machines available, because XP is what runs my preferred development tools best.

So sure, Ubuntu's not everything that some zealots make it out to be. I could say the same about any Linux distro I've used (or any OS I've tried, for that matter). But with the possible exception of SimplyMEPIS, I can't think of a Linux that I'd even consider suggesting as an alternative OS for the average Windows or Mac user.

-Rich
 
I just got a new laptop with Win 7 installed. I split the hard drive in half and loaded Ubuntu. I use Win 7 to run the Jeppesen suite and watch NetFlix, everything else is Ubuntu.

Joe
 
vshortt said:
What are you doing? following me around trying to pick a fight or something?

Dude, step off.... even linux-mag.com agreed, Ubunutu IS A JOKE

http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7600
Click to expand...
I read the article too. I see the author has some issues with the current release. In other articles, you might consider him leading the parade. Certainly NOT leaving us with the impression he thinks it is a JOKE.
That said, distros like Ubuntu and their offshoots may well force Microsoft into making a better product. About damned time if you ask me.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
sorry wrong title. (And as usual, cannot change in vbulletin.)

Friend has a Dell, the current specs are
40gB hd
1.25gB ram
2.66gH processor
Win xp home
SP3
"Pentium R 4CPU DIM 2400"

The hd is full.

What do I need to find out, in order to order a larger compatible hd?
Click to expand...
Think about buying an external drive, either a USB connected or network connected. Once connected, offload the non-essential data files. Cheaper solution than throwing out the original machine.
 
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