Hard drive?

Shadow2018

I'm in the process of building a new system and am lacking knowledge(first build) of which hard drive version to get. I know the oem version is drive only and the retail version comes with an install disk and cable. The cable I don't need but when building a new setup is it necessary to have an install disk? Looking at the seagate 80G drive. Also, my case has 3 fans-1 rear and 2 in front. How do I use all 3 case fans or does the board have to support the use of that many fans? Thanks for any help on the subject.

profdlp

Shadow2018 wrote:

...is it necessary to have an install disk?

Nope. The HD manufacturers include it so you will have a basic partitioning utility, a boot program to work around potential bios incompatibilty, and a diagnostic tool.

Your Windows CD can take care of the partitioning, bios problems are rare (unless your motherboard is very old), and the diagnostic tools are available for download at the manufacturer's website.
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...Also, my case has 3 fans-1 rear and 2 in front. How do I use all 3 case fans or does the board have to support the use of that many fans?...

If you're referring to the small three-wire connector to monitor rpm's then either your board must have the available connectors or you'll need a fancy fan bus. For the standard four-pin molex connector you just hook them to the power supply the same way you hook up a cdrom drive or hard drive. You won't be able to monitor or throttle the fan speed, but it will run just fine. RPM monitoring is mostly beneficial for keeping an eye on your CPU fan. A dying case fan will usually cause a rise in case temperature and a (non-fatal) system lockup at worst. If your CPU fan is about to kick the bucket you'll want to know about it as soon as possible since your processor can fry in the blink of an eye.

drasnor

You can also use 3->4 pin adapters if you aren't worried about RPM monitoring. Most of my case fans are set up that way.

-drasnor