ipod harddrive

can anyone help
harddrive died on the wife's 1st gen drive looking for a new 1 but got a questions....
1..do the new one need software or can u just plug in and it will work ?
2..any help on this would be great as i have no idea what iam doing

I not looked at the page properly but i think it may help u.

http://joshhighland.com/blog/2005/12/24/replacing-the-hardrive-of-an-ipod/