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.
April 1st, 2009 at 9:58 pm
James,
Maybe the noise is coming from the hard drive? When a laptop starts booting and then freezes, in many cases this problem could be related to the hard drive failure.
Test the hard drive. It’s possible that you can find the hard drive test in the BIOS menu.
Here’s what you can try. Remove the hard drive and boot the laptop with a live Linux CD (I use Knoppix). Will it work properly when the hard drive is removed? Is it still freezing even without the hard drive? If not, probably you have a bad hard drive.
Nope, you cannot do that.
I doubt it.
April 1st, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Hi there,
I came across this web site and hope you might be able to help me. I have a dell inspirion 8600 laptop. Recently it started having a problem when booting. IT begins to load the windows screen and then makes a static type sound (sounds like through the speakers) and reverts to the safe boot screen. Sometimes I can boot in safe mode. I cannot typically boot in safe mode with networking though. After sitting for a month or so I was able to start it fine – normally without problems. Just this week it began to have the same noise and safe boot screen problem.
I have windows xp, SP3. I have an IDE hard drive. Would this be a hard drive problem where I can replace the hard drive? or is is a motherboard problem? Can I replace the motherboard and upgrade to a SATA drive? Would it be a virus problem??
Thank you!!
March 29th, 2009 at 8:31 am
John,
Maybe you should mention the model of your laptop?
March 29th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Arg… I have an old computer… But I don’t know where the hard drive is XD so yeah… So how should i take it out without Damaging it. Also I have another hard drive from my friends laptop so how do i switch the two? ( I have a laptop)
March 24th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I agree. Knoppix is a very very useful tool. I use it all the time.
After you boot your computer to the desktop (looks and feels like Windows desktop by the way), the hard drive will appear on the desktop. Click on it to mount and if there if nothing wrong with the hard drive ( I mean hardware failure), you should be able to access it and find your files.
Now plug in a USB flash drive (formatted with FAT or FAT32) and it will pop up on the desktop too. Right click on the drive and enable writing to it. Now you can transfer files from the hard drive to the USB drive.
March 24th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Greetings….
If anyone’s HD will no longer boot and there are valuable files to recover, like Tim here:
My laptop stopped booting. I have tons of pictures and music inside. I
don’t care about the laptop it’s old. Is there any way to get my stuff?
Please help.
….one solution that avoids dismantling the computer is to use the Knoppix Live Linux CD link on the right of this page near the top.
Download and burn the CD, then boot the PC with the CD in the drive. May need to tweak the BIOS setting to allow the CD to boot. Not hard.
Inside Knoppix you will find an industrial strength Linux that allows you to copy files partitions and drives, reformat and sometimes repair partitions and drives and much more. Takes a little study, but well worth the effort. If we can do it, anyone can.
If the PC really is scrap, try reformatting the drive after backing up your files and then install a flavour of Linux, which will usually run faster than Windows (Ours was 35% faster on critical benchmarks) and will be a safe surfing machine for the web without 3rd party add-on software.
We did this a while back, still use our old (2001) lappies every day.
You can try most Linux flavours as a Live CD like Knoppix.
March 4th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Diego,
Yep, could be a faulty hard drive. Does it display any error message when restarting?
Listen closely for sounds coming from the hard drive when your laptop loading Windows. Can you hear any repetitive clicking noises or maybe unusual grinding noise? If yes, probably it’s a failing drive.
March 4th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I have a HP Pavillon dv6000. When I want to turn it on, it starts working, I can hear the fan and the lights come on just like normal, but after 30 sec (even before loads windows) seems like it turns off by itself and starts the process again, and again, after about 7-10 times it finally is working.
Do you think it could be de hard drive failing? Any ideas?
Thanks
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:10 pm
You cannot repair the hard drive. When it starts making noise, it must be replaced. Back up all important files ASAP if you can.
February 3rd, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I have a bad hard drive. As soon as I start my laptop it starts making very loud noise. I know it’s coming from the hard drive because when I remove it and start the laptop the noise disappeares. Can I repiar the hard drive or it has to be replaced?
February 1st, 2009 at 11:08 pm
[...] the next picture I compare SATA connector found in laptop hard drives with the SATA connector found in CD/DVD drives. As you see, these two connectors are a little bit [...]
January 13th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Sam,
I don’t think that you’ll see any difference in performance or longevity if you use either one. Just make sure to buy the correct type which is supported by your laptop.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Found many cheap hard drives on eBay, all different brands.
Toshiba, Hitachi, Western Digital, Seagate, etc… They all fit my laptop. Should I care about the brand?
January 9th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
It should be. The hard drive can access data faster now.
January 9th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Whoo hoo!
I replaced my old 4200 drive with a new 7200 drive.
My laptop is waaaaay faster now!
January 4th, 2009 at 1:07 am
Thank you. I have an IDE drive. Found a new enclosure for $17 and ordered it. Hopefully it will work.
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:14 pm
tim,
You can do that with an external USB enclosure for laptop hard drives. Buy an enclosure for your drive. It will cost you about $10-30. Remove the hard drive from your laptop. After that you install your drive into the enclosure and connect it to another working computer. The external drive will pop up in My Computers (if there is nothing wrong with the drive).
Now you can access the hard drive and backup all your data.
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:43 pm
My laptop stopped booting. I have tons of pictures and music inside. I don’t care about the laptop it’s old. Is there any way to get my stuff? Please help.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:32 am
Ben,
Your laptop supports a 40 GB drive, so there shouldn’t be any problem with larger hard drives too.
I believe you can safely install 60GB, 80GB, 100GB or 120GB drives.
If you want to use drives larger than 160GB, you should the laptop specifications. In some cases it might be necessary to update the laptop BIOS in order to support larger drives.
Here’s something else you can do. Go to the manufacturer’s website and search for optional parts (upgrades) for your laptop model. If they list a larger drive in there, it means your laptop will support that size.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:02 am
I want to upgrade the hard drive. I have a 40GB drive installed. Can I upgrade it to a 100GB drive?