"Pooh Bear" wrote in message

Arny Krueger wrote:.

The new hard drive would be a replacement. Data preservation (we
fear the current HD is failing) is the motivation.

What warning signs make you think that ?

Does your motherboard have 'SMART' capability for hard disks ? Self
Monitoring And Reporting Technology. Mine's 3 yrs old and does have.
Needs enabling in the BIOS.

Gives a status report at boot up. Mine says 'Status OK' every time.

SMART doesn't tell 100% of the story. If it says the disk is bad, then you
should replace the disk. If it does not say the disk is bad that doesn't
mean the disk is any good. It just means that SMART's limited testing finds
no faults.