hard drive info in old hp desktop

[tonyd861]

hey i have a HP Pavilion Media Centre M8095a DESKTOP which is very old .

just wanted to know if a new external HDD i bought which is a -

Western Digital 4 terrabyte new gold series 7200rpm

its has been put inside the desktop tower 

but i have not started or booted up the pc yet

i just wanted to know if the drive will be compatible ? or i have to check in bios ?

if some1 can assist me with that info be much appreciated

[WAWood]

@tonyd861 

The hard drive capacity limit on really old PCs was 120GB -- but since yours came with a 320GB, that limit does not apply.

You did not say what OS version you are using -- as that can affect this.

Any drive greater than 2GB must be formatted using GPT, not MBR, and older OS versions will not be able to do that.

If you download and install this partitioning tool, you should then be able to format the drive: MiniTool Partition Wizard 

But then you will have another issue -- as since your existing drive is formatted MBR and the new one will be formatted GPT, you will not be able to CLONE the old drive to the new one -- so that means you will not easily be able to migrate your current install to the new drive.  If you had bought a 2GB drive instead, you could have done the migration with that.

[tonyd861]

hey man thanks for reply . to be honest not really understand the info u sent with details GPT, not MBR,

just my friend bought old desktop had the new hdd put in . but has not booted up the pc

just wanted to know if the drive would work ? or i have to do something to make it work

[WAWood]

@tonyd861 

You have to do the formatting in advance, you can not just hook up the drive and expect it to work.  And, you also have to address the issue of HOW to get Windows onto it, because a blank drive is not going to boot.

So just pass along what I said, along with the details, to your friend.  If they do not understand it, then they need to get someone to help who does. 

[tonyd861]

ok thanks for your help