Will this Hard Drive work for me?

[MNI-SmellyCakes]

I was wondering if this hard drive will work for me (as in compatibility) for my Dell Inspiron 531.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136195

Does it matter what cache size? Or the size of the GB/s?

I know it'll fit, and will it take just a regular sata cable?

And one last question.. is it regularly formatted into NTFS? The reason I'm buying a new HD is because my old one isn't letting me load vista. It says I have 222GB of free space, but says I can't load it because it's not formatted into NTFS.

Thanks.

 

[rohan23]

Should work fine as long as your motherboard supports SATA drives.

 

[Grantofhell]

Why would you buy a smaller drive if you could just reformat? Unless I'm missing something here, that drive, if it had 222Gb of free space is much larger than the drive you're looking at and should do fine if you can reformat it. I suggest backing up EVERYTHING (make a disk image) if you intend to attempt reformatting. If it's SATA I know it can support NTFS >.>

 

[MNI-SmellyCakes]

As of now, I have NOTHING. When I instert the Windows Vista disk, it loads.. then when you attempt to click the drive you want vista on, (C: Drive), it won't allow you do to that because it's not formatted in NTFS..

I can see the format button, but it's all shaded in and unable to click on. Also, when I just turn on the computer itself, it loads Windows Vista and the green bar goes around two times, then crashes and restarts. (Never-ending cycle.)

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Have you tried deleting that partition during the Vista setup and then creating and formatting a new partition?

You are booting to the DVD drive with the install disk, correct?

 

[MNI-SmellyCakes]

Hmm, no I haven't.. but I will go try that now.

Anyways, this is my error (sorry for bad pic quality)

 

[Atomic Rooster]

From the looks of that pic, it appears that the format button is available.

 

[Joel~]

The reason it won't let you install is because the partition is not formatted (hence 'Unallocated Space'). Click on 'New' to create a partition, just clicking 'OK' when it asks you the size. Then click 'Format' which will take a minute or two. Then you should be able to install.

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Nice catch Denthúl, I had forgotten all about the "New" button.

 

[MNI-SmellyCakes]

Well, the "New" didn't work, but Atomic, I love you.. deleted the partion worked. I'm typing on this computer now !!