What hard drive replacement to get

plu

What hard drive to get?

It seems my hard drive is dead. It is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 Ultra ATA/100 250-GB Hard Drive Part number ST3250820A

I don't need any extra capacity. Please recommend a replacement as I haven't a clue

The reason I feel the HD is dead is it gives a can't read disk error and I cannot boot from the windows installation disc. I've ran diagnostics and googling the results

Machine is Dell Dimension E520 running on Windows XP Professional. It has happened completely out of the blue

zodac

I'd go with this:
€50 - Samsung F3 500GB

Your Seagate is there too, but it's €42 for a 250GB drive, so this is better value.

plu

My one is Ultra ATA. The one you suggest is Serial ATA
Are they interchangeable ie will the plugs / slots be the same

hearny

http://www.komplett.ie/Komplett/product/ZKB_01COM/11_HDD/07_INTHD35/productdetails/10017291/WD_Caviar_Blue_WD2500AAJB_Hard_drive_250_GB_/WD2500AAJB/default.aspx
Or any of these
http://www.elara.ie/products/harddiskside.asp?available=checked
will do the trick for you. Your drive is not Sata look for either ata or IDE.
The drive in the above link will not work.
If you need proof open your pc and look at the cable going into the hard drive.
It's a flat ribbon cable more than likely grey with a black connector.

zodac

I've got an E520 aswell, and mine is SATA, so I assumed your one was too. Sorry.

plu

The thing is that I don't know the difference between the two types of interface. I've looked at the spec sheet for this and it says
- Available interfaces: SATA 3Gb/s, SATA 1.5Gb/s or Parallel ATA/100

This one doesn't have a ribbon so I'm presuming it's SATA

Thanks for the help

hearny

Here is an image of an ide / ata cable
http://www.gshop.com.au/images/ide_133_cable.jpg

Here is an image of a SATA cable
http://gopaultech.com/files/2009/03/sata_cable.gif

What did you look at the spec sheet for, if it was the hard drive that will just list the available hard drives interfaces for that model.

The dell Dimension E520 supports SATA hard drives according to the manual, with no sign of IDE / ATA support.

Can you confirm the Part Number on you HDD.

You said in the OP "can't read disk error and I cannot boot from the windows installation disc" What results did you get from the diagnostics