What size hard drive for Compaq Presario R4000

[Bill Ford]

Compaq Presario R4000 laptop with a 40gb hard drive. Is there a way to find out how large a HD it will support? I would like to go at least 250gb, maybe 500.Running XP home edition.

Thanks..Bill

[Jack Stoner]

Many older PC's had a BIOS limitation on physical hard drive size. 250GB comes to mind, but I could be mistaken. Anything over that had to be partitioned into maximum 250GB partitions.

I want to say Windows XP may have issues with large capacity drives too and needs the partitioning.

This probably requires a PATA (IDE) interface driver, rather than the newer SATA.

To be blunt, a new drive will cost as much or more than a 2005 laptop is currently worth.

I may be totally wrong, but my 2 cents.

[Wiz Feinberg]

From my brief reading of the specs and other users' questions, it appears that the largest hard drive for your laptop would be 100 GB, 4200 rpm, IDE.

[Bill Ford]

Thanks for the info, I was thinking of SSD drive, but it will have to be MFG specific because of the physical configuration of the mounting layout. Might just go with flash drives for storage, and leave it like it is.

Thanks..BF

[Richard Sinkler]

Not sure about the size limitations in Xp. My Dell desktop, which ran Xp Media Edition, came from Dell with 2 500gb hard drives. I also have a 2tb external drive hooked to it. Xp didn't even bat an eye.

[Richard Sinkler]

Bill... My 2 laptops that I have owned, including the one I have now, I started using an external 750gb hard drive, and continue to do so. Even installed programs on it as the internal drive was getting really loaded down. That's the way I would go if you can't find a large drive to fit internally.

[Bill Ford]

I have access to a 250gb SSD SATA drive, I may try to load the OS on it, and use as an ext drive.

Bill

[Richard Sinkler]

Do you have the connectors to do that?

[Bill Ford]

Richard, Yes, I have the setup to use PATA/SATA drives external, also found a PATA 64gb SSD for $69, may get that..

Thanks, Bill

[Richard Sinkler]

That's really not much storage for the price. If your computer has USB ports, you can get external drive with 10 or more times that amount for about the same price. I would still recommend using the internal drive as your operating system (only) drive. That way, if it fails, you don't lose any program or data files. I paid around $100 for a western Digital 2tb external. You might need to find out if your computer will support the big drives. I don't think Xp will be an issue. It wasn't for me (as documented above).

[Wiz Feinberg]

The BIOS is the old Compaq might need to be upgraded (flashed) to recognize larger internal hard drives. It only has P-IDE connectors, limiting the drive choices to whatever you can fit in there that uses IDE, not SATA.

The limitations are hardware, not software related.

Newer laptops use SATA hard or solid state drives.

[Bill Ford]

Wiz,
This is what I looked at to install OS...64GB KingSpec 2.5-inch PATA/IDE SSD Solid State Disk $69, not much more storage but, should be faster load, etc.Mainly use for looking at pictures,email, etc on vacation.

BILL

[Wiz Feinberg]

That sounds good enough, Bill. You may or may not need to make an adjustment to the BIOS hard drive detection settings if there is a "trim" setting (for SSDs). If not, take what you can get from it.

[Bill Ford]

Got the SSD installed with no problems, seems to be running some faster..BTW, I'm on it now.

Thanks for all the help.Bill

[Wiz Feinberg]

That's good news Bill. I'll close this topic now.