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General discussion

Upgrading Dell Inspiron Hard Drive to 60+ gig? Which is best

by janmcn Nov 20, 2005 12:12PM PST

I have an Inspiron 8200 with a 30 gig hard drive. I'd like to upgrade to a fast (7200 rpm) 60-80 gig hard drive, but I'm not sure which one is going to be the most compatible and how easy is it to do?

Thanks...
Jan

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2 Posts

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My swap was simple

by Flap1 Nov 20, 2005 9:35PM PST

I installed a Hitachi Travelstar 60G 7200 rpm drive in my Sony VGN660. It was simple. Remove drive cover, unscrew the drive carrier, slip drive connector apart, swap drives in carrier, and reverse the process. Took about 20-30 mins. I bought my kit from Apricorn. It included the drive and the USB enclosure to make the original drive a USB backup drive. I cloned my original drive to the new one first, then installed the new one in the notebook and use the original for full backups (cloning). Works great. Cost $218 USD at Page Computer.
One thing I recommend if you do this is download the drive utilities from the Hitachi web site. The drive with it's original settings "ticked" a lot. It was annoying. That setting can be changed to quiet the drive a lot. It is silent now except when accessing data.
Hope this helps....

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Re:drive installation

by janmcn Nov 20, 2005 11:00PM PST

Thanks heaps for the usefull info...like the idea of making a clone first...so simple, but hadn't thought of it!
Jan

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