Old HP8275 question

I have an old Pavilion 8275 , and the HD died 8months(lasted a lot longer
then i thought it would) ago and i want to replace the HD to use older
software an games. Need help in figuring what i am going to need. I was
thinking a 40 GB drive .

Thanks Larry

The Pavilion 8275 is 1998 vintage with a 300MHz Pentium II. This falls
squarely in a gray area as far as hard drive capacity allowed by the motherboard
BIOS. Unfortunately, HP does not tell what the hard drive capacity limit is.

If I had to make a guess based on similar computers from the same timeframe, I
would say that anything under 32GB is probably OK.

The people who designed and wrote motherboard BIOSes were VERY shortsighted. One
of the early BIOS limits was 528MB, back in 386 days. Then came 2.1GB limits
with 486s and Pentiums, and 8.4GB with later Pentiums and Pentium MMX systems.
Still later, earlier Pentium II and some Pentium III systems had BIOS limits of
32MB. Next was 132GB. And so on.

All I can suggest is that you try whatever capacity you can get, and hope for
the best. 40GB and smaller drives are long out of production, so you probably
have to rely on a used drive... Ben Myers

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 03:26:13 GMT, Larry <> wrote:

>I have an old Pavilion 8275 , and the HD died 8months(lasted a lot longer
>then i thought it would) ago and i want to replace the HD to use older
>software an games. Need help in figuring what i am going to need. I was
>thinking a 40 GB drive .
>
>Thanks Larry

Ben Myers <> wrote in
news::

> The Pavilion 8275 is 1998 vintage with a 300MHz Pentium II. This
> falls squarely in a gray area as far as hard drive capacity allowed by
> the motherboard BIOS. Unfortunately, HP does not tell what the hard
> drive capacity limit is.
>
> If I had to make a guess based on similar computers from the same
> timeframe, I would say that anything under 32GB is probably OK.
>
> The people who designed and wrote motherboard BIOSes were VERY
> shortsighted. One of the early BIOS limits was 528MB, back in 386
> days. Then came 2.1GB limits with 486s and Pentiums, and 8.4GB with
> later Pentiums and Pentium MMX systems. Still later, earlier Pentium
> II and some Pentium III systems had BIOS limits of 32MB. Next was
> 132GB. And so on.
>
> All I can suggest is that you try whatever capacity you can get, and
> hope for the best. 40GB and smaller drives are long out of
> production, so you probably have to rely on a used drive... Ben Myers
>
> On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 03:26:13 GMT, Larry <>
> wrote:
>
>>I have an old Pavilion 8275 , and the HD died 8months(lasted a lot
>>longer then i thought it would) ago and i want to replace the HD to
>>use older software an games. Need help in figuring what i am going to
>>need. I was thinking a 40 GB drive .
>>
>>Thanks Larry
>
Yeah i thought that might be the case( it had a 8-GB HD ). Thanks for the
info.
Larry

Drives larger than 8GB are dirt cheap now, with the 120GB flavor running in the
$50-$60 range. If you don't mind possibly throwing away a small amount of
money, try a larger capacity drive. If all else fails, I have some 8GB drives
here. I can run a manufacturer's recertification test on one (or more) and
sell you a recertified one... Ben Myers

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 07:46:07 GMT, Larry <> wrote:

>Ben Myers <> wrote in
>news: :
>
>> The Pavilion 8275 is 1998 vintage with a 300MHz Pentium II. This
>> falls squarely in a gray area as far as hard drive capacity allowed by
>> the motherboard BIOS. Unfortunately, HP does not tell what the hard
>> drive capacity limit is.
>>
>> If I had to make a guess based on similar computers from the same
>> timeframe, I would say that anything under 32GB is probably OK.
>>
>> The people who designed and wrote motherboard BIOSes were VERY
>> shortsighted. One of the early BIOS limits was 528MB, back in 386
>> days. Then came 2.1GB limits with 486s and Pentiums, and 8.4GB with
>> later Pentiums and Pentium MMX systems. Still later, earlier Pentium
>> II and some Pentium III systems had BIOS limits of 32MB. Next was
>> 132GB. And so on.
>>
>> All I can suggest is that you try whatever capacity you can get, and
>> hope for the best. 40GB and smaller drives are long out of
>> production, so you probably have to rely on a used drive... Ben Myers
>>
>> On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 03:26:13 GMT, Larry <>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>I have an old Pavilion 8275 , and the HD died 8months(lasted a lot
>>>longer then i thought it would) ago and i want to replace the HD to
>>>use older software an games. Need help in figuring what i am going to
>>>need. I was thinking a 40 GB drive .
>>>
>>>Thanks Larry
>>
>Yeah i thought that might be the case( it had a 8-GB HD ). Thanks for the
>info.
>Larry