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Replacing a Laptop Hard drive

Mai-KeroMai-Kero Registered User regular
edited September 2008 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
So, question. I have a Dell Vostro 1500. It has a shitty, tiny-ass 109 GB HD that is also 5400 speed I believe.

I see that there's a 250 gig 7200 laptop drive on slickdeals right now for $80.

How easy is it to swap out a laptop hard drive on a Dell? Anything I should worry about? I'm thinking I might just wait it out and if something bad happens to the drive that's covered under accidental damage I'll get a new one and see if I can upgrade it then.

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Posts

  • PeregrineFalconPeregrineFalcon Registered User regular
    edited September 2008
    Stupid easy. Remove screws, remove drive, install new drive, replace screws.

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  • martinimartini Registered User regular
    edited September 2008
    The only thing to make sure is that you buy a 2.5" mobile drive with the right interface, but it looks like the Vostro is SATA, so that shouldn't be a problem (older laptops used EIDE drives with pins).

    Dell's documentation is pretty decent, you can see exactly what to do here.

    Agreed that it's stupid easy, I've done it a ton of times. One suggestion I have is that you might want to buy an enclosure for your old drive, they are as little as $15 or so for 2.5" mobile drives, and it's a good way to use your old drive as a backup, and makes transferring files to the new drive easy.

    martini on
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  • Mai-KeroMai-Kero Registered User regular
    edited September 2008
    martini wrote: »
    The only thing to make sure is that you buy a 2.5" mobile drive with the right interface, but it looks like the Vostro is SATA, so that shouldn't be a problem (older laptops used EIDE drives with pins).

    Dell's documentation is pretty decent, you can see exactly what to do here.

    Agreed that it's stupid easy, I've done it a ton of times. One suggestion I have is that you might want to buy an enclosure for your old drive, they are as little as $15 or so for 2.5" mobile drives, and it's a good way to use your old drive as a backup.

    Holy crap that is stupid easy.

    I was expecting to have to pull out the keyboard like I had to in order to put extra RAM in.

    That's fantastic.

    I think I'm going to upgrade with a question about Dell specifically.

    Mai-Kero on
  • Mai-KeroMai-Kero Registered User regular
    edited September 2008
    Mai-Kero wrote: »
    martini wrote: »
    The only thing to make sure is that you buy a 2.5" mobile drive with the right interface, but it looks like the Vostro is SATA, so that shouldn't be a problem (older laptops used EIDE drives with pins).

    Dell's documentation is pretty decent, you can see exactly what to do here.

    Agreed that it's stupid easy, I've done it a ton of times. One suggestion I have is that you might want to buy an enclosure for your old drive, they are as little as $15 or so for 2.5" mobile drives, and it's a good way to use your old drive as a backup.

    Holy crap that is stupid easy.

    I was expecting to have to pull out the keyboard like I had to in order to put extra RAM in.

    That's fantastic.

    Mai-Kero on
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