HD failing; need advice for choosing a new one

I'm running Windows XP SP3 on an emachines T6410 (Gateway) with 1 GB RAM.
My hard drive has been making a clicking sound, especially during the first 15 minutes after starting up cold. I took it out and held it in my hand just to make sure the noise was actually the drive, and it is pretty obvious, because most of the clicks correspond with the HD activity LED.

It is a hitachi model HDS722516VLAT20. I Googled that number and got this info about it: Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 Hard Drive - 14R9247, 160GB - 7200rpm - Ultra ATA/100 (ATA-6) - IDE/EIDE.

I plan to buy a new one as soon as I can get to a store. I looked at a few online and there are, of course, many types. Some are SATA, and some are Ultra ATA.
Question 1.) Since mine is an Ultra ATA/100, does that mean I have to replace it with an Ultra ATA/100, or would an Ultra ATA/133 or an SATA work? I'm not sure what all of that means. Best Buy has two drives; one is a Western Digital 320GB Ultra ATA/133 for $68. The other is a WD 160 GB Ultra ATA/100 for $60. I would really like the larger drive, but I don't know if it will work since it's a 133 and not a 100 like my old one.

Question 2.) If I install the new drive temporarily as a slave and install Norton Ghost on the old drive, can I make my new drive identical to the old one without re-installing anything? If so, I may buy a copy of Ghost or something comparable.

Question 3.) I also plan to partition it so that I can have a backup bootable Windows XP in case of an OS failure. Can anyone tell me what size partition I'll need for that backup OS?

Thanks,
Rusty

 

I'll answer your questions below but first, have you actually ran drive diagnostics to see if your current hard drive is faulty?

Look here for the drive fitness test and other useful tools that may help you.

1) Any PATA (ie ATA/66 ATA/100 ATA/133) drive will work, SATA drives will not work without buying an additional controller card.

2) Short answer yes.

3) That depends on your setup, if you're happy doing a clean install then 4GB will be plenty for the backup partition, if you want to add additional software then more space will be required. NOTE relying on a backup on the same drive is never a good idea.

 

PATA is a dead technology & how long would it be supported is not known. Most manufacturers have already shifted most of their production to SATA & make only a few PATA drives.

IMHO it would be better if you purchase a SATA controller card & SATA hard disk instead of a PATA hard disk.

 

depending on the age of your motherboard, you might have existing SATA connectors, SATA controllers and they're required drivers can be troublesome at times on non SATA boards.

 

Thanks for the responses. My drive gets a clean bill of health from my disk utility, HD Clean. I haven't tried other diagnostic utilities, BUT, the clicking and clunking has recently developed, the drive is 2 1/2 years old with heavy use, so I'm pretty leary of trusting it any longer. I have another slot on my MB for what I'm told on another forum is for SATA, so I'll probably go with that.
I'll probably have a new drive spinning tonight, so I'll update you on my situation.
Thanks,
Rusty

 

According to this page, the system does have a SATA controller. That being said, I would recommend the WD brand, as you have found at Best Buy. I have never had problems with these drives. Here are some prices of SATA drives. You can get 300+ GB for under a $100. As Wildfire mentions, having your backup on the only drive is not a good idea. Better to buy a second drive and use that. That chances of two drives failing at the same time are pretty slim.

Mike

 

Never underestimate Murphy's Law. It strikes when least expected & when you need your data most.

Backup on the 2nd drive by all means, but it should NOT be your primary backup method. Always backup to a secondary device like DVD, another computer etc.

 

I got a new 320GB Western Digital SATA drive. When I got it home, my motherboard had 4 SATA sockets, but no power connector for that drive. I guess those jerks that assembled my machine put in an older power supply. I couldn't find an adapter, so back to the store I went. I came home with a WD 320GB EIDE. I downloaded the trial version of Acronis and cloned the old drive onto the new one. I can't believe that really works. It does! The speed increase with the new drive is incredible. I haven't seen that much boost since I doubled my RAM.
I like the Acronis features, so I might buy it.

 

RknRusty, you would have been better off buying power convertor for SATA instead of a PATA drive. But the deed has been done & so enjoy your new hard disk.

Most of the [cheap] power supplies do not come with SATA connectors. They all still give you old PATA connectors. So those jerks did not do anything wrong .

 

RknRusty,

Good to hear that you got things going again and got a boost of performance to boot. Too bad about the power connector, that would have been nice. Thanks for the update.

Mike

 

Replacement would be wise- hard disk diagnostics are not reliable, I've seen brand new drives fail without warning. I my case, sometimes it's human error- can't rule that out.
As far as the SATA issue is concerned, it'll future-proof you- your future upgrades need not necessarily inclue a new drive. And the connectors are simply better with SATA- sturdier. Less chance of breaking a pin. And with SATA, you can buy two drives in tandem and have one automatically clone the other one- easy backups. But a DVD backup would still be safe, just in case.
And it surprises me- I bought a SATA 360Gb Seagate for roughly $63- here in India. I always imagined India to be expensive compared to the west when it comes to electronics, what with all the taxes and duties and levies and excise. Or is it that Seagate is simply cheaper?

 

I was thinking about that. It probably takes a bunch of DVDs to store a clone. I keep as much as I can back up with data files copied on a DVD in my bank's safe box. That way if the house burns down, I still have something.