Want to replace my hard drive from 160g to 500g what do i need to know

want to replace my hard drive on a compaq presario sr055cl. it has a 160 g hard drive how big can i go 
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Here is the Service Manual showing how to replace a hard drive:
Manual
It does have 2 SATA connectors. Here is a picture of the motherboard. 
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00069442&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en...
This is primitive SATA. It is a SATA connection to an IDE bus. However, the fact that you have a 160 gig drive already installed tells me the motherboard will accept Large Block Addressing 48 bit (LBA48) which means you are not really constrained by size. I am sure a 500 gig drive will work and will bet a 1 TB would also work. I will also bet you would have problems with a high density drive of 2 TB or higher. The existing drive is a IDE, which means it is connected to the motherboard with a flat ribbon cable. You will have a hard time finding an IDE drive on the market these days. It will have to be SATA. Just attach a SATA data cable between the hard drive and the motherboard. You will likely need to get a molex (white 4-pin) to SATA power adapter, too, but those often come with the hard drive or are available for a couple bucks at the store where hard drives are sold. 
You should be able to clone the old drive to the new using cloning software. I like and recommend Acronis True Image Home. If I were doing this I would connect the new SATA drive to the motherboard port with the side cover off and also bring power to the SATA drive. I would leave the original drive in and boot from the cloning software disk doing a proportional resize so all partitions are expanded the same percentage. After the clone is complete remove the original drive and bolt the SATA drive in its place. I would just tell you to add a second hard drive but the computer only has space for one unless you want to remove the card reader.
You may need to enable the SATA ports in the BIOS if they are not currently in use. The motherboard picture page linked above tells how to enter the BIOS. Post back if you need more help.
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