Firstly, please excuse the fact that I haven't really got a clue what I'm talking about here! :)

I have a 5 year old 80gb personal running Windows XP (I think the make is AMD Athlon, with a Gigabyte Technology Co. Motherboard).

I want to get an external hard drive for greater storage and to use for back up.I don't know where to begin to try to find out what external hard drive to purchase.

I was reading through other questions on 'Answers' and I've seen 'USB 2.0 Port' referred to a few times as something I have to have on my computer to be able to add an external hard drive.

Could someone please tell me what a USB 2.0 Port is - and how I have the ability to check if I have it?

Any other advise on external hard drives would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Answer:
HI, a USB port is a way to connect devices to your computer it is a Universal Serial Bus. the latest version being USB 2.0. Your personal will probably have USB 2.0 ports because of it's age. You can buy an upgrade card for around £10 and get an external hard drive for around £100 that will give @ 300GB of disk space. All the items come with instructions of how to fit and operate them so take care and good luck.
Answer:
USB 1 and 2 look identical and can both work together, usually. But devices that are designed to run on 2 will run slower in an older 1 spec port. Some not at all.

The USB on your Personal computer is likely to to be the older USB 1 spec, all newer devices run on USB 2 spec . You will need to install a PCI USB upgrade card.

Open the side of your machine and see if you’ve a spare white slot, you need to install the card in there, it's not difficult. Instructions come with it.

Below is an example.

Answer:
The USB port is the small flat plug socket that most everything uses these days, you normally have 2 or 4 at the back and on later model personal 2 at the front, if your computer is over 5 years old it might have USB 1.1 but most external Hard Drives will work, but it will be slow, When you plug in your accessories it will show up a tiny dialogue if you’ve USB one
Answer:
USB 2 is a later version of Standard USB (faster data transfer)

Your personal at 5 years old probably does not have USB2 but you can buy a card to fit inside your machine with USB2 driver. It should not be very expensive.

Just ask at you local Computer shop or look on e-bay.

Best of luck

Answer:
All personal have a usb 2.0 port well i state all but most computers since the millennium have them.There should be 2 in the front and 2 in the back so you will have 4 usb 2.0 ports.All you’ve to do is plug the external hardrive in the usb port and its ready to go