Hi I'm 62 years of age and a newbie as far as computers go. I recently purchased a 160gb Barracuda 7200.10 Hard drive (thinking it would fit my computer) was a bit surprised when i saw the connectors and realised that it wasn't the same as my ide connector on my Dell Optiplex GX150. My problem is can I still use this hard drive? and what do I need to make it work? I have a Maxtor 40gig hard drive at the moment but it seems that its on the way out get a warning message at start of boot sequence that it operating out side of its parametters. So hence the purchase of the new hard drive..

I seem to have 2 options one is to spend some money on buying stuff so that it will work in my PC or secondly to stick it on ebay and hope to get my money back. Trouble is I am retired and living on a tight budget and its so confusing knowing what to buy. Any help will be gratefully received.

As I have already stated my PC is a Dell Optiflex GX150 it has 512 mb of Ram and the operating System is Windows XP Pro service pk2