are all hard drives universal?

[guido slowski]

i have a gateway pc ,i tried to take the cd rom thingy apart and now seems like the gears arent meshing right,can i just throw a cd rom thing from an old ibm pc into the gateway?,the gateway will mainly be used for storing data, a backup pc thanks in advance and great site!! (the dumb guy) :rolleyes:

[DIY Guy]

You asked about a hard drive but talk about disassembing the CD-ROM. I assume you are asking about whether you can swap any old CD-ROM in for an old one.

If that is the question, the answer is yes, pretty much. The controller cables have changed over the years, so you may need to match on that point, but other than that, a CD-ROM is a CD-ROM.