Is this WD External HD OK for Internal?

[Borg20001]

I'm having a problem with my HD and the Master Boot Record - or so I think. So I am thinking of grabbing a new HD to reinstall WinXP Pro on it and then slave the old HD to it so I can pull all my data off. (I was wary of running FixMBR in the WinXP Recovery Console for fear of losing my partitions and hence my data).

I saw this WD External 1.5 TB drive on sale at Target (WDBAAU0015) for $70 bucks and was wondering if I should buy this drive (I need to replace a SATA Drive with a SATA drive). I figure I could open the case and remove the HD and install it in the PC.

Good idea or bad?

The only reason I'm looking at this is that its readliy availble at Target so no waiting for shipping etc. from Newegg or whomever and its relatively cheap.

Appreciate any feedback.

If you want to weigh in on my HD problem, feel free to post your advice on my thread in the Computer Help section:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2166829

Thanks

 

[boochi]

Should work fine but, you will void the warranty. It will likely be a 5400rpm WD15EARS. It is not going to be very fast but should run cool. You could get that same WD15EARS drive online for $65 shipped from newegg and keep a warranty on it.

 

[Borg20001]

Should work fine but, you will void the warranty. It will likely be a 5400rpm WD15EARS. It is not going to be very fast but should run cool. You could get that same WD15EARS drive online for $65 shipped from newegg and keep a warranty on it.

Yeah, I found that on Newegg after I posted this thread. I guess patience is a virtue. Will have to check it out and see if I want to order and keep the warranty.

Thx

 

[Borg20001]

Ended up buying a Samsung Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2 TB 5400 RPM SATA bare drive for $69. It may be a bit slow but I want set it up as my Master Drive and see if I can salvage my files from the 750GB Samsung that went hinkey.

Will first try to pull all my datafiles from the old HD and then try running FixMBR on it. That way I have the full backup if things go bad.

Will probably have all my system files installed in a month if I have to reinstall everything

I hate recovering bad HD's

 

[XLNC]

Only reason I might recommend against this is those drives sometimes have aggressive sleep timers. I suffered with one for a while where it would sleep in the middle of important tasks, and the spin up time may not be as quick as a intended internal drive.

Glad you picked the F4 though, great drives.

 

[Borg20001]

Only reason I might recommend against this is those drives sometimes have aggressive sleep timers. I suffered with one for a while where it would sleep in the middle of important tasks, and the spin up time may not be as quick as a intended internal drive.

Glad you picked the F4 though, great drives.

Thanks for the feedback XLNC. Yes, I think in the meantime I will pull the bad drive and hook it up to another PC to see if I can pull my data from it. Guess I should have done this first before buying the new HD - typical - figure out what to do after I've taken steps.

Oh well. Appreciate the info!