My wife office got new computers so they gave the employees the old ones. They were told that the hard drive was removed. So my question is what info do I need to know to go and buy a hard drive.

size weather or not its ide or serial ata got a good hd like a seagate they carry 5 year warrenty. get a good size thats going to suit you another thing you got to look into is installing windows on the drive heres one to look at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148104

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1642561
or even this

Another thing to consider is the size of hard drive the computer supports. Depending on how old it is, it may not support the newer, larger hard drives. If you know the model number, you should be able to find out from the manufacturer's website. The techs at her work might be a good source for that info as well.

Slonaker

:agree:

is the computer custom built? that is - are there any identifying marks, logos or brands on the outside?

can you get inside the case? if you can, the motherboard will always have the model # silkscreened onto it with white writing. with that information, you can look up all of the specs for what the computer is compatible with. for an example, look at this picture and notice the "P4P800" above the second white PCI slot from the bottom:

http://www.build-a-computer-guide.com/images/A455-1028-diagram-a-Lmotherboard.jpg

This is an example of a motherboard model number. another identifying mark is the word "Asus" on the Northbridge chipset (look for silver square just above center of the board, the writing in black is Asus' brand logo).

So, from looking at this board, i know it is an Asus P4P800 motherboard, and i can go to their website and get all of the specs and tolerances in the help section!

if you want to let me know the model number, i will look it up for you and get back to you.

The computer is a Dell Optiplex 260 the model number is DHM. I looked on the motherboard there were a few white stickers with numbers. I don't know if this is what I am suposed to be looking for?

Okay, the Optiplex 260 used IDE drives (not SATA or SCSI) by default. I think you can pretty much use any drive that says IDE on it somewhere. I prefer Seagate myself. You can find killer deals at NewEgg.com, great customer service, fast shipping, etc.

If you find one you want and you just wanna bounce it off me or anyone else here, post a link to it and somoene will let you know if what you're looking to buy is OK.

PS - you want a 7200 RPM drive with at least an 8MB cache on it.