Hard drive
Most modern laptops use 2.5″ hard drives. Older laptops use IDE hard drives, newer laptops use SATA hard drives. SATA and IDE drives are not interchangeable, they have absolutely different connectors.
If your laptop came with an IDE hard drive you cannot replace it with a SATA drive. The connector on your drive will not mach connector on the motherboard.
As you see on the pictuer above, a SATA drive has two flat connectors and an IDE drive has two rows of pins.
SATA hard drives has faster data transfer rate then IDE drivers. SATA – 150MB/s and IDE – 100/133MB/s.
Laptop hard drives spin at different speeds and most common are 4200RPM, 5400RPM, 7200RPM.
The RPM number indicates how fast the hard drive platters spin. Hard drives with high RPM number are quicker than hard drives with low RPM number because they can access data faster.
SATA connectors on a laptop hard drive are similar to SATA connectors on a destkop hard drive. You can connect a SATA laptop hard drive to a desktop computer using same SATA cables.
WHERE HARD DRIVE IS LOCATED IN A LAPTOP.
On most laptops the hard drive can be accessed from the bottom.
On some laptops the hard drive is burried inside the case and it’s necessary to disassemble the laptop in order to access and replace the hard drive.
HARD DRIVE UPGRADE.
A hard drive is the slowest part in any laptop. If you would like to speed up your laptop, replace your low RPM drive with a faster one. Fast RPM drives are backward compatible with low RPM drives.
If you would like to install a larger hard drive, take a look at the user’s manual and laptop specifications. Make sure your laptop supports larger drives.
Need spare parts for your laptop?
If you are looking for spare parts for your laptop you can find brand new and used parts here. Just search by the part name and laptop model.
March 8th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Repair Man,
Hi, I am trying to fix a Toshiba Satellite 1905-S301 for a friend. He found the laptop somehow and it didn’t have a hard drive or power supply. I ordered the parts from Amazon and upon trying to install the HDD found that it didn’t fit. Do you happen to know if there is a carriage for this model of laptop with an adapter cable? They are both IDE type connections but the new drive just doesn’t fit, Toshiba website doesn’t offer much useful information.
December 5th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
many thanks!
December 5th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I intend to change the 100GB HD of my Toshiba M45, upgrading capacity to 250 or 320GB. Current HD has an IDE connector (but not like the photo above, more like the SATA connector although IDE for sure). Is this type of connector commonplace? Most pictures I’ve seen show IDE connectors just like the one the picture.
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Hello, Repair man. My laptop, Toshiba. Wont start up. it freezes at the toshiba logo. and makes a staic/popping noise.
What is the issue?
help, please
September 19th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
My laptop has a 128Gb Solid State Hard Drive. It is hella fast.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Paul,
Some motherboard have both types of connectors IDE and SATA. Take a closer look on the motherboard. Maybe your motherboard has SATA connectors. If that’s the case, all you have to do is buy SATA cables and connect them to your new hard drive.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I recently bought a Western digital SATA 160gb hard drive for an HP Pavilion desktop computer – a335w. I now know that the cables were IDE type. Is there any way to adapt the SATA drive to the IDE cable? I am asking for a replacement from the eBay seller with a similar size hard drive that would be compatible with the older type of cables. Is that my only option?
May 8th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I just replaced my original 80GB SATA hard drive with a new 320GB SATA hard drive. Works like a charm!
Man, these drives are so cheap these days. I got mine for $67 and free shipping.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:32 am
George,
There will be no problem. Even though the internal hard drive is a SATA drive, you still can use an IDE drive in an external enclosure. Just make sure your enclosure is made for IDE drives so the connector inside matches your hard drive.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:24 am
My laptop uses a SATA hard drive, and I was wondering if there would be any problem with plugging in an IDE hard drive in an external USB enclosure into my laptop?
April 7th, 2009 at 9:41 am
James,
I’m not sure, both images have the same size. Go just with KNOPPIX_V6.0.1CD-2009-02-08-EN.iso
Yes, you’ll have to download the ISO file and burn it as image (not data CD). Start your burning software and select burn disc image. This will make your CD bootable. If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, Google “How to burn ISO file”.
After that you should be able to boot the laptop from that bootable CD even with the hard drive removed.
I’ve noticed that some newer laptops will not boot from Knoppix CD, but most of them do.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Hi Repair Man,
For the Kpoppix Linux CD, do I download the V6.0.1 CD.iso or V6.0.1-AdrianeV1.1CD.iso?
Once I have it on CD I can remove the hard drive, insert the CD into the CD rom, and boot the laptop? The system will read the .iso file? am I missing any steps?
thanks.