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    Replacement hard drive for Dell 8600 - which to get?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by bazers, Jun 20, 2009.

  1. bazers

    bazers Newbie

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    A couple years back my hard drive crashed repeatedly so I just got a new laptop.

    Now I want to give my old Dell 8600 to my son for his schoolwork. We tried reformatting the hard drive and it was successful -- for a day -- until it crashed again.

    I have never changed out a hard drive so I'd like some advice on what hard drive I should buy for this notebook.

    It doesn't have to be super speedy since he's not doing gaming or anything like that on it. But I'd like something that is dependable and of course will be appropriate for the laptop. I'm clueless here. There are probably questions I should be asking that I don't know to ask.

    Finally, suggestions on where I should purchase the recommended hard drive.

    Thanks
    Shane
     
  2. namaiki

    namaiki "basically rocks" Super Moderator

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    What country will you be purchasing in?

    If you're in the US, any of these drives should be fine.

    A popular and speedy (haha) drive is the Samsung HM160HC and then the 320GB Western Digital, if you want a higher capacity drive.
     
  3. NiteWalker

    NiteWalker Notebook Evangelist

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  4. namaiki

    namaiki "basically rocks" Super Moderator

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    While those are good drives, the Inspiron 8600 needs to use a PATA hard drive, an SATA drive is not compatible.

    The coupon however is great.
     
  5. NiteWalker

    NiteWalker Notebook Evangelist

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    My mistake. I didn't bother checking up on the model #.
     
  6. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    Yes, those SATA drives will not work. The inspiron 8600 can support all PATA notebook drives. The systems chipset supports drives over 137GB, so the Samsung HM160HC and the Western Digital WD3200BEVE are two good options.

    Both the Samsung and western digital mentioned have the same speed, one just has twice the capacity.
    To be honest, those are the only drives worth looking for, unless you have a Samsung HM080GC

    K-TRON