Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

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hlewton
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Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by hlewton »

The current hard drive I have in my computer is Western Digital WDC WD5000AZLX-00CL5A0. When I searched for it before, I physically measured it at 3 1/2" wide. Sticking with that model number above I found a replacement for it but the specs said it was 4" wide. It provided a number to reach Western Digital with any questions about the drive. I called them and was told the one in my machine had to be knock off because Western Digital did not make a hard disk that was 3 1/2" wide. I did believe him then but not now. I did order the 4" wide one though because of what he said. I have since searched and found many WD hard drives at 3 1/2" wide mostly at Amazon but at other suppliers as well, even at Western Digital's own site. I find it very disheartening when you can't get good support, especially from a manufacturer.

I am leading to a question. The 3 1/2" drives I found do not match the model number but their RPMs and SATA specs are the same. Could I have used one of them even though the model numbers were not identical?
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JoeP
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by JoeP »

You could use any drive that has the same interface as the original. BTW, why not consider an SSD? You'd appreciate the speed improvement.
Joe

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hlewton
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

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JoeP wrote:
06 Feb 2023, 03:37
You could use any drive that has the same interface as the original. BTW, why not consider an SSD? You'd appreciate the speed improvement.
Thanks Joe. I have SSDs my newer computers. This computer I am trying to get MS-DOS working on and I'm hoping to soon get that done. I don't know enough about building computers, but if I fail to get DOS running the way I need it to, I may play around with your suggestion just to see what happens. Right now, Windows Update site says it is not compatible with Windows 11. Not sure what all would have to be replaced for it to be compatible. Thanks again.
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HansV
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by HansV »

You can download PC Health Check from How to check if your device meets Windows 11 system requirements after changing device hardware. It will tell you which component(s) fail to meet the requirements for Windows 11.

(If it is an older PC, it is probably the CPU)
Best wishes,
Hans

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hlewton
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

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WOW, I shouldn't even be thinking about this BUT I am. I searched to see if there was any SSD drive compatible with the older mother board in that computer. It seems there is but the site I found them at, Curcial, mentioned "Compatible RAM" also. Do you know, if I ran the PC health check at Windows Update site, would it reliably list what wasn't compatible, like say the RAM and possibly the mother board? I can try running it, I just never have and not sure it is reliable.
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HansV
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by HansV »

It's Microsoft's official Windows 11 compatibility checker; it should list all components that prevent you from installing Windows 11.
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hlewton
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

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HansV wrote:
06 Feb 2023, 12:12
It's Microsoft's official Windows 11 compatibility checker; it should list all components that prevent you from installing Windows 11.
OK, thank you. I don't think I am going to upgrade that computer but it's a thought. I think I'll at least run that check.
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hlewton

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hlewton
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by hlewton »

HansV wrote:
06 Feb 2023, 12:03
You can download PC Health Check from How to check if your device meets Windows 11 system requirements after changing device hardware. It will tell you which component(s) fail to meet the requirements for Windows 11.

(If it is an older PC, it is probably the CPU)
Sorry Hans, I didn't see this post before but I am going to save the link and check the machine just for fun. Thanks.
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hlewton

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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

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Yep Hans, you're right. Windows 11 doesn't currently support the processor. There were two other things but that was the main one. So now, back to playing with it as it is.
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hlewton

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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by hlewton »

I'm intrigued with the idea of a SSD if it turns out I can't make a DOS computer out of the one I am using. I spent the last couple hours trying to figure out what I would need to order. I believe I don't have much of a choice but to choose 2.5" SSD. However, the bays in my computer are 3.5" or 4" wide. There is no 2.5" bay or slot. So I did find adapters to make the 2.5" SSD card fit into the slot. I think I found one I can use but wondering if I did not use enough search criteria. Can I use any SATA SSD that I can adapt to fit the slots available, as with the HHDs I asked about above? Or do I need to somehow figure out if it will work with the mother board I have? Believe me, I have already tried searching that way and found nothing concrete.
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Jay Freedman
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by Jay Freedman »

You can mount a 2.5" SSD on many carriers meant for 3.5" drives. The SSD has screw holes on the bottom as well as the sides, and the mount usually has screw holes in the deck as well as on the side rails. Look at the carrier you have now, to see if the holes are there. This is what one of my SSDs looks like, with arrows pointing to the screws in the bottom of the carrier:
top.jpg
bottom.jpg
Sorry about the ugly top view -- it happened when I tried to force the 3 MB original photo down to 65 kB. :hairout:

As long as the SSD has SATA connectors for data and power, it will function just like a hard drive with the same connectors. My desktop tower has two SSDs and two hard drives, and they all connect the same way with the same kind of cables. There is no dependence on CPU or RAM types or other stuff on the motherboard (as long as it has SATA support).
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hlewton
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

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Thank you very much. Mine has the slots for mounting drives on the side. I guess I have located the correct SSD since it matches the criteria you mention. The HDD drive in the computer now is definitely SATA and it works along with the installed RAM so I guess that is all I needed to know. Again, thanks.
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stuck
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

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Jay Freedman wrote:
07 Feb 2023, 02:35
...Sorry about the ugly top view -- it happened when I tried to force the 3 MB original photo down to 65 kB. :hairout: ...
You need RIOT:
    https://riot-optimizer.com/

I use the (old) plugin version that's compatible with (an old version of) IrfanView to get my large photo files (usually TIFFs of about 130 MB) down to The Lounge limit of 256 KB and still end up with versions of them that people here seem to enjoy.

Ken

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hlewton
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

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stuck wrote:
07 Feb 2023, 12:43
Jay Freedman wrote:
07 Feb 2023, 02:35
...Sorry about the ugly top view -- it happened when I tried to force the 3 MB original photo down to 65 kB. :hairout: ...
You need RIOT:
    https://riot-optimizer.com/

I use the (old) plugin version that's compatible with (an old version of) IrfanView to get my large photo files (usually TIFFs of about 130 MB) down to The Lounge limit of 256 KB and still end up with versions of them that people here seem to enjoy.

Ken
I'm going to look at this link too. I am not sure what you consider large photo files but I have some that are 5000 KB or slightly larger that I have used Paint to shrink. I know very little about photo editors but Paint makes it easy for most of my needs.
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hlewton

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hlewton
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by hlewton »

hlewton wrote:
07 Feb 2023, 14:20
stuck wrote:
07 Feb 2023, 12:43
Jay Freedman wrote:
07 Feb 2023, 02:35
...Sorry about the ugly top view -- it happened when I tried to force the 3 MB original photo down to 65 kB. :hairout: ...
You need RIOT:
    https://riot-optimizer.com/

I use the (old) plugin version that's compatible with (an old version of) IrfanView to get my large photo files (usually TIFFs of about 130 MB) down to The Lounge limit of 256 KB and still end up with versions of them that people here seem to enjoy.

Ken
I'm going to look at this link too. I am not sure what you consider large photo files but I have some that are 5000 KB or slightly larger that I have used Paint to shrink. I know very little about photo editors but Paint makes it easy for most of my needs.
I see you mentioned plugin and I read about it at the link provided. I was thinking it was a stand alone program, not sure how a plugin would work for me because I have no experience with that.
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hlewton

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stuck
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by stuck »

RIOT is a stand alone program and that what you get if you use the download button on the page I linked to.

However, it is also available as a plugin to some other graphic applications, which means it can be invoked directly from within those applications. Up to and including v4.57 of IrfanView the RIOT plugin was bundled with IrfanView, making it trivial to resize huge image files down to something more web friendly. All you did was open the original image in IrfanView and then click File | Save for Web and a pop-up window appeared giving you access to RIOT's functionality. From v4.58 and onwards of IrfanView though, the RIOT plugin became incompatible with IrfanView and the developers of the two applications could not agree on a way to fix this problem. For this reason, i.e. so I can still use RIOT from within IrfanView, I'm still using IrfanView v4.57 (32 bit).

Ken

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hlewton
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

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stuck wrote:
07 Feb 2023, 15:12
RIOT is a stand alone program and that what you get if you use the download button on the page I linked to.

However, it is also available as a plugin to some other graphic applications, which means it can be invoked directly from within those applications. Up to and including v4.57 of IrfanView the RIOT plugin was bundled with IrfanView, making it trivial to resize huge image files down to something more web friendly. All you did was open the original image in IrfanView and then click File | Save for Web and a pop-up window appeared giving you access to RIOT's functionality. From v4.58 and onwards of IrfanView though, the RIOT plugin became incompatible with IrfanView and the developers of the two applications could not agree on a way to fix this problem. For this reason, i.e. so I can still use RIOT from within IrfanView, I'm still using IrfanView v4.57 (32 bit).

Ken
Thanks, I am going there right now and download it. From where you linked me to, I clicked on another link trying to learn more about it. That is where I came up with it being a plugin.
Regards,
hlewton

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hlewton
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by hlewton »

That worked great. In one step it resized a photo from 1613 KB to 9 KB. However, in checking the properties of it, it is still over the allowed pixels for an avatar. I don't understand that but, it is what it is, as they say. :grin:
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hlewton

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HansV
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by HansV »

You first have to resize the image to the desired pixel size.

S2225.png

If the file size is still too large after that, you can reduce the quality.
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Best wishes,
Hans

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hlewton
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Re: Western Digitial Replacement Hard Drive

Post by hlewton »

HansV wrote:
07 Feb 2023, 15:56
You first have to resize the image to the desired pixel size.


S2225.png


If the file size is still too large after that, you can reduce the quality.
Thanks I will give that a try.
Regards,
hlewton