Hi,
I have been having problems w/ my Compaq Presario 2218Rs Laptop for a while now. I've used the recovery disk a few times and it reinstalled the operating system, but it would only last a day or maybe a couple days and then it would crash again. Now I can't get the operating system to load and I've tried everything I know to try. I get numberous error messages and blue screens. some times it says that the partition can't be formatted.
I talked to an hp technician and he thinks I need a need hard drive. He said it would be like $400:eek: . The laptop came with a 60GB harddrive. I'm not sure if all harddrives are the same or if some have special features, but I've looked on the web and found 60 GB harddrives for $50! I could get a 756GB drive for the price hp wants to charge me for a 60. What gives?

$400 is, what I like to call, tax on ignorance. If there is one thing that is interchangeable with laptops, regardless of vendor, it is HD. I suggest that you take HP's technician's advice and get new HD, .... BUT (my advices):

- DON'T buy on the net. Go to the store and get new one or find some 2nd hand one in the neighborhood. You must try it on before you buy it.

- don't pay over $100. That is the optimal capacity/cost ratio with HDs.

- think about the laptop's warranty. I'm sure HP wouldn't appreciate if you wouldn't donate $400 to them. Check if such replacement would void the warranty. That is, if there still is one.

No warranty. I had a 1 year warranty on it. And its about a year and a half old now. So does it matter what kind of hard drive I get? Since I'm having to replace it I thought I might upgrade if I could. I'm not sure how to tell if a hard drive would be compatible with my pc, though.

That's simlpe. Just plug it in. I hear that not alldrives have same jacks, but I also hear that there are adopters that would be usefull in your case.

If it fits, check what BIOS says. If it sees the drive, install windows on site. Don't wait 'till you get home to do it. Could be that all will look well until 1st reboot, and then..BAM..."Error loading operating system".

I've been doing a little research on hard drives and I see that there are SATA and IDE hard drives. What is the difference between these two and which should I get? Also what size should I look at getting? The one that the laptop came with was 60 GB. I think I want to go bigger, but I'm not sure what size is feasible. I use it mostly for surfing the web. I do play a few games as well and I know that takes up some space. I also use some programming applications such as Visual Studio.

You should get whatever HD type you had before. I think it was IDE drive, since it was 60 GB. I could be wrong. SATA and SATA II are next generation HDs, to some extent still compatible with IDE, though they would require adopters to be connected with IDE controller, for the jacks are completely different. Here's what it looks like:

http://www.addonics.com/products/io/...de_enlarge.gif


Although this not meant for laptops. They have smaller and more dense pins, but the principle is the same.

I suggest that you get $100 IDE drive, (unless you had SATA drive originally).
It is optimal capacity/cost ratio.

P.S. Don't buy it on-line. You have to make sure it fits and works BEFORE you pay for it. Best test is Windows XP installation on site. Can't beat that. If it reboots normally, then you know it works.