Hello plehsdeen.

Ok on the compaq page they say this

• Two drive bays open for expansion

So you should be OK just adding another drive, as for size, what size are you thinking of?

I don't think your OS will be a limiting factor (unless we're talking MASSIVE) your BIOS will most likely be the cause of any limit.

posting a question to Compaq would probably be your best bet regarding that.

Connecting should be a walk in the park, especially if you use it as a secondary disk drive.

Things you should check for.

• Two drive bays open for expansion (are they only for CD drives?)

Check around the floppy and existing HDD to see if there is any space for one, if you have to use a CD sized bay, then your going to need some long stand-offs or brackets to hold the drive, both should be fairly easy to find.

Check that your power supply has a spare 4 pin connector

Check your IDE cable for the existing drive to see if it has a spare connector on it, to connect the new drive to.

You can buy different IDE cables if you need one (with the extra port) but most IDE cable have the connectors for 2 drives as standard. You can also buy splitters for the 4 pin connector from your power supply.

Assuming a worse case, you will need brackets, IDE cable and power splitter, total price of about £5-10 at the max (on top of your drive)

Think all of the above may be a little too much info, or you are already prepared for that, the key question is the max size the OS can deal with, I couldn't find any restrictions on the web (quick search) the only restrictions I was aware of where relating to BIOS, as I suggested earlier, your best bet on getting actual info is to go to Compaq, fire off an email, and wait for them to get back to you (If you email them with the size disk you are looking at, they should be able to give you a straight yes or no)

I would guess that you could get a PATA drive up to about 200Gb without too much trouble

Hopefully one of the other members at daniweb has stuck a huge drive in one of these machines, and will be able to give you a definative answer.

SE

Thanks for the reply I emailed Compaq and this is what I got

What should I do now?

Also got this

I am not sure if this is a typical response, i.e. try to just get the customer to buy whole computer... Or if this a limit in your BIOS, Windows ME is not limited to 60Gb HDD's.

I don't know what to recommend, they may be telling you a fact based on your BIOS (which I obviously don't know anything about)

You processor - celeron 800, kit for that would be fairly cheap now from somewhere like Ebay. I think I would buy the HDD that I wanted as a second (or as a replacement (what ever you want to do really) hook it up and see if it works, if it doesn't, then I would splash another what £15 inc postage for a second hand board from ebay, I know £15 is money you don't wnat to spen on top of HDD, but choices are limited.

The case looks fairly average, I would guess you could get away with adding a standard board to that case without too much problem, and just in case, see a board you like get the tape measure out to get size of your board, and then email the seller and ask them the size of the board they are selling.

Ultimately I would guess that it is just a fairly standard Compaq response, one they used when they where selling the machines - they just want you to buy a new one...
I think I would buy the HDD, and see if it works, if not buy a new board as well.

Just what I would do

SE

That's a disgusting response from Compaq. Even if there is a BIOS limitation at around the 60Gb mark, it doesn't work by 'adding up' the total capacity of all the drives in your system! A BIOS limitation is the maximum size for any one drive. Compaq's (HPs) advice is an utter nonsense!

Thanks for the reply you guys

So I guess I should just buy a hardrive hook it up and if it doesn't work then I'll have to buy a used motherboard from somewhere that will recognize it. If I may ask another question? Could I possibly buy a drive and make it into an external USB one?[If so how]

You do that by fitting it into a USB external drive caddy. It's quite a simple task, and they're not excessively expensive. (About the cost of a drive itself, or a little less.

Thanks for that reply Catweazle

Oh if I may also ask do I need to do anything so the external drive doesn't have to reboot everytime I plug it in and take it out.[Like if its possibble to boot up and then later plug it in to add some files then unplug it]Also how exactly does this external drive work do I have to install any software? Can I save work straight to the drive or do I have save to my internal one and then copy it over to the external?