I have compaq evo n600c with a bad hard drive. My question is could i get a new hard drive from a store like frys or do i have to get a special compaq evo n600c only hard drive from there web site? THANKS Zack

You can buy a hard drive from where ever you want, just make sure if it is a IDE or sata drive that your compaq has.

Also remember that the higher the rpm of the harddrive, the less battery life you'll get; this is important for a older unit like this where the battery might not be in the best state anyway.

One other thing to note. Your computer most likely is NOT 48 bit LBA compliant. That means it can't handle a harddrive with a capacity of more than 127GB. If I am correct then you have two choices. First is to get a drive 120GB or less. The second is to install a controller card and buy whatever size you wish. If your unit is a Laptop computer then the controller card is not feasable. Unfortunately I know of no good free way to determine ahead of time wheather the computer is 28 bit or 48 bit compliant other than by gauging by the processor speed. Below is a link explaining 48 bit LBA compliance. You could contact HP and inquire about the ability of your computer to use a large HDrive. Intel did have some software that was a workaround. Not sure if it is still available. One advantage of using a controller card is that you would be able to use SATA interface harddrives. This is the current standard interface and is slightly faster but more importantly easily transferred to a new computer when the time comes. http://www.48bitlba.com/index.htm If your computer is a laptop the link below is for a choice of a number of drives that should work. IF it is a desktop the same vendor has 3.5" IDE drives available. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...

Wow thanks for the response's. How do i tell if its serial or IDE? Zack

With the speed of your processor I am assumming you have IDE harddrives. The issue is laptops use 2.5" drives. Desktops use 3.5" drives. Both will still be ATA/IDE. SATA is relatively new.