Upgrading laptop hard drive

[mrodgers]

Hi everyone,

Due partly to lots of photos, my laptop hard drive is getting pretty full. It's only a 160GB (and windows explorer displays it as having 134GB total capacity), so how easy would it be to put a bigger one in?

I've seen a few bits of software for backing up the entire contents of the old hard drive so they can be put on the new one but I'm not entirely sure how they would work; would I be able to do this without having to reinstall the OS and all of the software I've got, and would software need serial numbers putting in again?

Also, where is the best place to get a new disk from? There seem to be loads on Amazon, but is there anywhere better/cheaper to get one from?

Thanks in advance


Matt

 

[sep9001]

Hi Matt,

What laptop is it? And what is your budget?

On some laptops if you do not use the CD rom you can get a caddy to slot in the cd drive and add another hard drive in the caddy. Also do you backup your photos anywhere else? If not you might also what to invest in a portable usb drive for back up.

With regards to re-install, what OS are you running? With Win 7 you can create a boot disk and and image to another drive and restore to the new drive.

 

[mrodgers]

It's a Dell Inspiron 1545, and the budget is as low as possible ideally! The laptop was only £350 a couple of years ago so it doesn't make sense spending lots to upgrade it.

All of my photos/important files are backed up onto a 500GB external drive, and I'm running windows 7.

 

[sep9001]

Do you have enough space on your external drive, if you do you can use the backup option in Win 7 and create a system disk if you do not already have the install cd. Once done, you can replace the drive and use the system disk to restore the image.

There is a how to remove the hd vid on youtube.

What are you planning on saving on the hd?

Depending on what you want to store on the drive look for a 7200 rpm 2.5" sata drive. if you want to go with the option of using your cd rom bay have a look at 2nd dell inspiron 1545 hard drive caddy on the flebay.

 

[mrodgers]

Thanks for the quick replies,

There should be plenty of space on the external drive. I've got the windows install CD's as well, but there are a few bits of software on it (PTC Creo, Matlab) that took a long time to download and install in the first place so if I could get away without doing this again it would be good. I'll have a look for some videos on youtube.

Thanks for the help

Matt

 

[sep9001]

No problems. The win7 takes a full image of the drive and includes all the software. Also make sure you have everything working before you delete the 160gb one.

 

[Mikesphotaes]

Do you have enough space on your external drive, if you do you can use the backup option in Win 7 and create a system disk if you do not already have the install cd. Once done, you can replace the drive and use the system disk to restore the image.

There is a how to remove the hd vid on youtube.

What are you planning on saving on the hd?

Depending on what you want to store on the drive look for a 7200 rpm 2.5" sata drive. if you want to go with the option of using your cd rom bay have a look at 2nd dell inspiron 1545 hard drive caddy on the flebay.

Just make sure you click on System Image and not backups, it should be a dawdle.

 

[mrodgers]

Just make sure you click on System Image and not backups, it should be a dawdle.

So if I click on system image in windows backup that will copy the entire contents of the disk onto the external HD, and then I can restore everything from that when I've put the new drive in?

Sorry for all of the questions, just wanted to make sure I understand what's going on.

 

[arad85]

So if I click on system image in windows backup that will copy the entire contents of the disk onto the external HD, and then I can restore everything from that when I've put the new drive in?

Yes.