| Value |  4.5 | | Performance | 4.5 | | Ease of Use |  4 | | Overall Satisfaction | 4.5 |
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5 of 5 Good drive but not a simple install Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Ken from Minnesota
This is a nice bare bones drive but it does not come equipped with mounting screws, instructions or cable. Installing one in Windows 98SE requires you to go to the Western Digital site for this information. They have plenty of documentation about drives over 137 gigs but it is hard to find the info for smaller drives. If your computer is down you have no way to download the program to install the drive. Some of the big box stores are selling these drives ready to install for only a few bucks more. Was this review helpful?  
2 of 2 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 No-frills edition of a classic IDE drive. Monday, June 10, 2002
sanlyn from New York City
True, no bells or whistles on this low-priced BUY.Com edition (sold by other online shops, too, and by WD's own website), probably because so many buyers use the mounting hardware from their crashed Maxtor's and IBM's to replace those duds with this fast and reliable WD '40'. Our office has a foot-high stack of practically new, wiped-out Maxtor's and IBM's from Dell PC's, replaced by WD drives with no more troubles -- and those sluggish Dells got a performance boost, at that! Also have six more 40's for backups. What a bargain! Was this review helpful?
4 of 4 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 best deal for what I paid. Friday, April 19, 2002
A Customer from san francisco
Compare to Compusa store, buy.com sells hard drives much cheaper.Why pay more for bulky box with downloadable software? As long as OEM aren't defective, I dig on those OEMs.I really don't care about installation software.I use partition magic 7 to format,split,and modify in so many different ways.I split and install external control switches and boot from my choice of drives.I use multiple windows system,linux and advance server on those drives and so far so good. I particularly like IBM drives better because they give me 3 year warranty and getting RMA is like buying movie ticket online. Was this review helpful?
20 of 20 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 No documentation because... Monday, March 25, 2002
IDE RAID IS GREAT! from Ann Arbor, MI
I have purchased quite a few drives from Buy.com, to be specific, 2 Quantum Fireball AS 40.0GB 7200RPM drives, and this one, the Western Digital Caviar 40.0GB 7200RPM drive. For all 3 drives, only the drive ships, and that's why the price is so rediculously low! These drives are known as OEM drives - also the ones supplied directly to manufacturers like Dell. OEM drives come with nothing more than the drive (and in some cases, shorter warranties) in order to keep costs low. If you want a drive with all the documentation and cables included, make sure you buy a drive with *RETAIL* in the description - Retail means it's the same as you would buy at a regular store (and generally, means more expensive too). There is no documentation with this drive, because there isn't supposed to be... Was this review helpful?
4 of 4 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 Awesome Drive! Super Price Saturday, March 16, 2002
TR from Raleigh, NC
Western Digital drives rock! No instructions necessary. If it's the only drive on the chain, jump for CS (Cable Select) othewise jump for MA (master) or SL (slave). Prior to install go out to the W-D web site and download the Data LifeGuard tools. You create a bootable floppy that can be used to run drive diags, lay down a low level format and set the ATA level.
If you can't load the tools, just make sure OS supports large drives > 30GB and just format and partition as part of the standard install. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 Western Digital makes great hard drives Monday, March 11, 2002
Chris S from Waldorf Md
This is hands down a great hard drive.Yes it is a bare drive without any of the extra's,but why do you think it comes at such a low price? All you have to do is download the software from western digitals website under the support section and supply your own floppy to run it from. Once you have set up a hard drive using western digitals software you will never want to use anything else. It not only formats and partitions your hard drive it also copy's your old hard drive onto the new one. How painless is that? The only downside is that you don't get the special data cable designed for the higher data transfer, which is only a problem if you have an older computer that doesn't support ATA/66 or higher(you will still be able to use the drive at ATA/33 with the older cable you just won'tnget the full speed of the drive) in which case you have the option to buy a PCI controller card(which does come with the proper data cable) to get the full speed of the drive. Was this review helpful?
6 of 9 customers found this review helpful.
3 of 5 No Documentation Thursday, January 24, 2002
Roger McCall from Wake Forest NC
Like the last reviewer, this drive came without any documentation or cables. The description says that installation software is included. It isn't. Better know what you are doing. Was this review helpful?
4 of 6 customers found this review helpful.
4 of 5 Just the hard drive Saturday, January 19, 2002
A Customer from Oak Lawn, IL
The hard drive works great. It came in a box with nothing else. There was no documentation, cables or mounting screws. Luckily I didn't need any cables and borrowed some screws from the other hard drive that was still in the p.c.
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