changing laptop drive?

Cyber-Mav · 19 Feb 2006 at 01:40

hi all, iv got a seagate momentus 4200rpm 2mb cache 40 gig drive in my lappy. the drive is slow so i was thinking about upgrading it to a faster unit.

i have seen the 60gb 5400rpm 8mb cache western digital scorpio drive and i am planning on getting this drive as a replacement. thing is can i swap the drives over without having to reinstall everything?

usually on a desktop pc i can ghost all the data over to the newer drive but the lappy only has support for a single hard drive at once.

im planning on using the existing drive in the lappy as an external usb storage device so i will also be getting a caddy for the old drive when i place the order for the new drive.

any ideas if its possible to image all the data over from the old 40 gig drive to the new drive by placing the new drive in the usb2 caddy? or does ghosting not work over usb devices? :confused:

Humey · 19 Feb 2006 at 01:45

There is Hitachi 7200 rpm laptop HDD's (cost £ more), the is main reason lappy's are slow is the 5400 rpm HDD's, I hate them lol.

MAllen · 19 Feb 2006 at 13:52

I have a Hitachi 7200rpm in my Dell. Very noticable improvement. Especially when installing programs or any disk intensive task.

And yes - Ghost is all you need when swapping drives. You should be able to do it in the caddy. Or worst case it you could do it via some writeable CDs or even slapping the notebook drives into a desktop case (assuming you have the IDE convertors)

Cyber-Mav · 22 Feb 2006 at 20:14

hmm, the current drive im my lappy is a 40gig segate momemntus 4200rpm drive 2meg cache.

would there be any speed difference going to a 5400rpm western digital 60gig 8mb cache drive?

Geffen · 22 Feb 2006 at 21:07

Do you have to take into account the amount of power and heat the drives make or will that not be a problem?

benjo plz. · 22 Feb 2006 at 21:11

7200rpms are bloody expensive. I have a Samsung 5400rpm MP0804H 8mb cache drive in my laptop and it's very good.

Cyber-Mav · 22 Feb 2006 at 21:42

power and heat is not a problem. just after more performance. also im after an external usb hard drive which is self powered of the usb port so the old drive out the lappy would be perfect for that.

i can get a western digital scorpio 60 gig 5400rpm 8mb cache drive for 50qud inc vat so was wondering if it would be much faster than my current seagate momentus 4200rpm 2mb cache drive?

benjo plz. · 22 Feb 2006 at 21:43

Yeh it would be, the cache would also make a difference too.

MAllen · 23 Feb 2006 at 11:12

The 7200rpm Hitachi HDD in my Dell Laptop does add a little warmth, but not much. A nice hand warmer.

Speed is very noticable. Especially when installing programs or loading game levels. Any time you are moving lots of data, the extra speed and cache makes a noticable difference.

And beware of bus powered disk caddies. Most laptop's don't have stong enough USB to support them. My Dell won't do it. Neither have other Dell's I have tried. Toshiba's also don't seem to have the spare power (tried about ten of these). I did get a Sony working with one. So don't be surprised if your external caddy needs external power.

benjo plz. · 23 Feb 2006 at 17:21

Mine does (its a toshiba), and most caddies come with two usb plugs, so that you can draw twice as much current.

MAllen · 23 Feb 2006 at 17:25

The caddies I have used do have two cables - but one is for the data, and the second is for the power.

Is your Tosh a new Tosh? (i.e. last two years) The ones I have tried were all pretty old.

benjo plz. · 23 Feb 2006 at 17:31

MAllen said:
The caddies I have used do have two cables - but one is for the data, and the second is for the power.

Is your Tosh a new Tosh? (i.e. last two years) The ones I have tried were all pretty old.

I think both draw current (one does data aswell), otherwise, whats the point of having two?.

Mines a Sattelite 1130 series, old tbh.

MAllen · 23 Feb 2006 at 19:03

I should have taken more notice of which Toshiba models I was working with....

Cyber-Mav · 23 Feb 2006 at 21:18

hmm, i guess i will go ahead and buy the drive and the caddy.
the 40gig i take out of the laptop shoudl be fine for external use and its only going to be used to transfer data from desktop pcs to other desktops so no need to worry about the power output of laptop usb sockets. and during the data transfer from the lappy i can make it use 2 usb ports for the additional power.