Uploaded February 2017 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
What promised to be the simple retirement of and subsequent upgrade from my Dell Inspiron 530 became something of a fool's errand. Its replacement, a Dell Optiplex 790, was heavily damaged during shipment, so much so that it refused to POST, much less even power on. It had somehow sustained such copious damage in transit that a great many areas of its metal case were heavily bent, warped, and damaged. It was recognized that sending a replacement computer was both fiscally and mutually agreeable. Some days later, a Dell Optiplex 7010 arrived, ready to take the place of my Inspiron 530 and its once-thought-to-be successor.
As I was going to the trouble of implementing a new computer, I figured it would be an appropriate time to improve upon the Inspiron's beleaguered hard-drive and data storage situation. A "certified refurbished" Western Digital Black hard-drive was selected for the task. The use of a proper hard-drive health monitoring utility was all that was necessary to reveal the claims of its being "tested and having no errors" to be a falsity. Strangely, the Western Digital supplied hard-drive diagnostic (Data LifeGuard Diagnostic) software gave no indication of the existence of bad and reallocated sectors and "passed" the drive! Both CrystalDiskInfo and HDAT2 proved the aforesaid wrong, however! This being what it was, I sprung for brand new hard-drives from both Seagate and Hitachi.
It would, at times, be argued that the lack of a 3.5" drive bay on a newer computer is a moot point. If your plans of ancillary peripherals include an internal floppy disk drive, you'd best look elsewhere. The motherboards on both the Optiplex 790 and 7010 lack the necessary 34 pin floppy disk connector. With all this being said, a 3.5" drive bay is eminently suitable for any of the 3.5" memory card readers available on the new and used markets. It is for this reason I soon developed plans of utilizing an adapter of sorts to convert one of the computer's two 5.25" optical drive bays to, as you'd likely guess, a 3.5" card reader. Adapters of plastic or metal are both available for sale; I ultimately decided to pay a few dollars more for an adapter made not of plastic but of aluminum.
Of the many card-readers designed to be accommodated within a 3.5" drive bay, the TEAC CA-200 card reader was determined to be a satisfactory selection. Aside from being a name-brand model and not one of the many generic options available, it is very same model used in many of Dell's past computers--including my Inspiron 530-- which were so equipped. I really am pleased with how this aftermarket card-reader modification keeps up the appearance of being a stock configuration.
Something I neglected to mention in the course of the video was the processor in use on the Optiplex 7010: an Intel Core i5-3570.
In attempts at brevity, a look at the problematic WD Caviar Black drive was not offered in the video. Below is a consolatory indulgence:
stereophonicstuff.mooo.com/images/wdblackhd
What promised to be the simple retirement of and subsequent upgrade from my Dell Inspiron 530 became something of a fool's errand. Its replacement, a Dell Optiplex 790, was heavily damaged during shipment, so much so that it refused to POST, much less even power on. It had somehow sustained such copious damage in transit that a great many areas of its metal case were heavily bent, warped, and damaged. It was recognized that sending a replacement computer was both fiscally and mutually agreeable. Some days later, a Dell Optiplex 7010 arrived, ready to take the place of my Inspiron 530 and its once-thought-to-be successor.
As I was going to the trouble of implementing a new computer, I figured it would be an appropriate time to improve upon the Inspiron's beleaguered hard-drive and data storage situation. A "certified refurbished" Western Digital Black hard-drive was selected for the task. The use of a proper hard-drive health monitoring utility was all that was necessary to reveal the claims of its being "tested and having no errors" to be a falsity. Strangely, the Western Digital supplied hard-drive diagnostic (Data LifeGuard Diagnostic) software gave no indication of the existence of bad and reallocated sectors and "passed" the drive! Both CrystalDiskInfo and HDAT2 proved the aforesaid wrong, however! This being what it was, I sprung for brand new hard-drives from both Seagate and Hitachi.
It would, at times, be argued that the lack of a 3.5" drive bay on a newer computer is a moot point. If your plans of ancillary peripherals include an internal floppy disk drive, you'd best look elsewhere. The motherboards on both the Optiplex 790 and 7010 lack the necessary 34 pin floppy disk connector. With all this being said, a 3.5" drive bay is eminently suitable for any of the 3.5" memory card readers available on the new and used markets. It is for this reason I soon developed plans of utilizing an adapter of sorts to convert one of the computer's two 5.25" optical drive bays to, as you'd likely guess, a 3.5" card reader. Adapters of plastic or metal are both available for sale; I ultimately decided to pay a few dollars more for an adapter made not of plastic but of aluminum.
Of the many card-readers designed to be accommodated within a 3.5" drive bay, the TEAC CA-200 card reader was determined to be a satisfactory selection. Aside from being a name-brand model and not one of the many generic options available, it is very same model used in many of Dell's past computers--including my Inspiron 530-- which were so equipped. I really am pleased with how this aftermarket card-reader modification keeps up the appearance of being a stock configuration.
Something I neglected to mention in the course of the video was the processor in use on the Optiplex 7010: an Intel Core i5-3570.
In attempts at brevity, a look at the problematic WD Caviar Black drive was not offered in the video. Below is a consolatory indulgence:
stereophonicstuff.mooo.com/images/wdblackhd
