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Upgrading laptop HDD

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  • 05-10-2010 10:06am
    #1
    tattoo
    Registered Users Posts: 139 ✭✭


    Hey folks,

    Beginner here, so i apologise if i sound thick.

    I'm looking to upgrade my compaq laptop HDD. It's about 5 year old and only has about 70gb HDD space. I'm looking to upgrade to about 250gb.

    Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on what i should be looking out for.
    Is it difficult for a novice to replace a HDD?
    Does anyone have advice on which HDD to buy?

    Thanks in advance


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    #2
    Voodu Child
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,706 ✭✭✭Voodu Child


    The first thing you need to do is ascertain whether your HDD is SATA or IDE. Current laptops use SATA drives but if yours is five years old there is a good chance it uses IDE drives. You can find this out either by taking it out and looking at it, or else by finding the model number (in device manager) and googling it.

    2.5" IDE drives are still manufactured, but not a lot so choice is fairly limited.

    The second thing you want to do is find out if your laptop and OS supports 48-bit LBA. You can find this out by contacting the manufacturer, or by googling your laptop. And I think there are apps that can determine it for you also. Again, all new laptops do but older ones may not. If it doesnt support 48-bit LBA then you'll have problems with drives over 137GB (ie over 120GB in practical terms). I think you can work around the problem by partitioning the drive into sections smaller than 137GB but im not sure if you have to partition it on another machine (that supports 48-bit LBA) or not.


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    #3
    Black Swan
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 47,258 CMod ✭✭✭✭Black Swan


    Rather than attempt a problematic laptop upgrade, why not buy an external HDD connected by USB?


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    #4
    tricky D
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,700 ✭✭✭tricky D


    Voodu Child wrote: »
    The second thing you want to do is find out if your laptop and OS supports 48-bit LBA. You can find this out by contacting the manufacturer, or by googling your laptop. And I think there are apps that can determine it for you also. Again, all new laptops do but older ones may not. If it doesnt support 48-bit LBA then you'll have problems with drives over 137GB (ie over 120GB in practical terms). I think you can work around the problem by partitioning the drive into sections smaller than 137GB but im not sure if you have to partition it on another machine (that supports 48-bit LBA) or not.

    This is important. When I upgraded to 160GB, I went to the nice people at marxcomputers* in Fairview who had this covered and partitioned the disk for me in a few minutes avoiding any potential hassles.

    *no affiliation, just a happy customer every time.


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    #5
    tattoo
    Registered Users Posts: 139 ✭✭tattoo


    Cheers folks for the help.

    Not as simple as i first thought. I might try marxcomputers for advice on which HDD to get, thanks tricky.

    Blue, i already have an external HDD, i just want more on laptop for programs, there's very little space on it + trying to to convince my gf to use the external HDD for her pictures is a lost cause.:rolleyes:

    Thanks again


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