I have a an HP a1632x here with a somewhat corrupted hdd. Saved data, but can I replace the hdd with a hdd that is not of the exact same brand as the one that came with the computer, the Samsung hd300lj? Thanks

Yes. Any SATA drive. It doesn't matter to the HP software installation, or any Windows operating system installation, what brand the hard drive is, and since the original drive is probably 300gb, you don't have a capacity limitation - it doesn't matter what size it is. By the way, you may be able to replace the drive thru the hard drive manufacturer's warranty, since your computer was probably made in 2006 or later, and the warranty is at least 3 years if not 5.. If you were to change the mboard to a different one or one that didn't have a HP bios version, that WOULD be a problem, if you wanted to be able to re-install the original HP software installation. .......... Did you actually test the drive? If you didn't, corrupted data doesn't necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the drive physically. If you haven't, or in any case, only the results of the drive manufacturer's own diagnostic program qualifies for making a warranty claim. Check your hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostics. See the latter part of response 1 in this: http://www.computing.net/windows95/... (thanks to Dan Penny for this link:) Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm... If you don't have a floppy drive, you can get a CD image diagnostic utility from most hard drive manufacturer's web sites, but obviously you would need to make a burned CD, preferably a CD-R for best compatibilty, on another computer if you need to. If the hard drive itself tests okay, any data problems found can be fixed, one way or another.

Thanks, I was sure that that was the case, but I just wanted to confirm it. Yeah, I know about the mobo thing. Thanks for the quick response!