I need a bigger harddrive for an old laptop

[Miller Time]

Howdy,
I have a Dell Inspiron 7000 with an IBM Travelstar ATA/IDE, 4.86GB model# DBCA-204860.
I run Windows XP on it and it's so full it wants to shut down on me.
I need a bigger harddrive but not sure what is compatible, and I don't know if I need more than just a bigger drive??
Just plain need help figuring how to keep this old guy working for me.
Jeff

[jbennet]

Where do you live?

in the UK you can buy 2.5" laptop drives from Maplin Electronics

[caperjack]

my guess is you wouldn't be able to go much bigger than a 20 gig hdd. try e-bay ,if not just for price comparison .
http://computers.listings.ebay.ca/Hard-Drives_10-1-GB-20-0-GB_W0QQfclZ3QQfromZR11QQsacatZ38119QQsocmdZListingItemList

[forumdude123]

you're better off getting a new pc, BUT, if you insist on using your current pc, you may be able to expand up to either a 137GB 2.5" hdd if you're lucky, or more than likely a 20gb hdd, because this is an old pc that contains older hardware that may not support many larger drives. I would be safe and buy a 40GB hdd, and divide it into 2 partitions, one for OS, one for data.

Do you also want to keep your older data, or start fresh from the beginning?

[Miller Time]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.
I don't need to keep anything that's on it. I'm using Windows XP.
I would be satisfied with 20, 40 or 60GB but I wasn't sure if any of those would be too big of an upgrade and give me trouble or not.
I am Not computer savvy about the internal workings or replacing things myself but the HDD is an easy in and out so thought I'd attempt this myself as long as I can buy the correct one. Any HDD that is ATA/IDE is okay then? What about the ones that have a number after them like ATA-6....is that something that wouldn't be compatible?
This computer is Not my main computer and I just want to upgrade the HDD and possibly the RAM (what are your thoughts?) just because it is a Laptop and would come in handy for me plus I'm on a limited income so a newer Laptop is out of the question at this time. I have found 40GB HDDs on eBay at a store named Krex for $40. It says they are compatible for a Dell Inspiron 7000 but I wanted to be sure.
It's all greek to me about partitioning the drive?????

[caperjack]

in this review, http://www.reviewcentre.com/review224855.html , the guy put a 40gig in and added ram ,my guess on the ram would be that its pc100.the laptop is quite old not ,actually i have 1 similar dell latitude cpi,coming any day now ,paid 48.00cdn for it .