Can I upgrade the hard drive on a Compaq Presario 1500T

[Dogsbody]

I'd like to know if I can upgrade the hard drive on a Compaq Presario 1500T to one of the IBM 5400 RPM 60 GB drives. I can't find a definite answer and would like to know before I purchase the notebook. I'm trying to decide between the Presario and an IBM A31 and am leaning towards the Compaq because of the integrated USB 2.0 and Firewire ports. What do you guys think?

 

[VBboy]

Sorry, I don't know. Why not ask a tech support rep at HPaq/Compaq about it? You have the right to know about upgradeability of a system...

 

[MIGhunter]

Compaq will tell you to buy from them. I had a compaq presario 5724 and it was pretty much un-upgradeable. I tried to take the memory from stock the 96 mb to the max 256 mg and all I ever had was problems. I never tried the HDD but everything else was a no go. Even the DVD player was a mess. I wanted to use it in my new system and it turned out not to be an ATAPI drive. They don't care that you can't buy what you want. They just want you to spend money on their products.

When I upgraded from Win98 to XP, I lost function of a lot of my stuff. The one that I never got working was the DVDRom. No XP compatable decoder. Compaqs answer to the problem was "don't upgrade your OS."

 

[Dogsbody]

I've got a question into the Compaq forum now but haven't heard anything back. I can't seem to get a question to Compaq tech support because I haven't actually bought a notebook yet. I want to know if it's upgradeable before I buy it. When I try to send question to their tech support, they want a serial number before I can send it in..

I konw what you mean about upgradeability. I want to upgrade my current Microns Transport ZX notebook from W2K to XP Pro but can't get it to install. Micron says the same thing, "don't upgrade"!!! That's one reason i'm trying to find out everything I can before buying a new unit.

 

[Mojonba]

Yes it is upgradable. The Hard Drive bay accepts a 12.5mm drive so you can get any storage capacity you want. I ordered mine with the cheapest 20gb drive, sold it on ebay and upgraded to a Ibm 40gnx 40Gb 5400rpm with 8mb buffer. The difference in speed was noticeable. You also have two user accesible dimms for a maximum of 1 gig of ddr ram.

My lappy is a Compaq 1500T with 2.2 ghz. Ordered it with the crappy hard drive and 1 dimm of 256 ddr. Upgraded the hard drive to the fastest one available and upgraded the ram to 512. Have been running for more than a month now with no problems. Got a screaming fast laptop for less than $2000. Compaq overcharges too much on hard drive upgrades and memory upgrades.

 

[Dogsbody]

Mojonba1, thanks, you gave me the answer I was hoping for! Just for the record, is the hard drive that you installed a 12.5 mm drive? I got an answer back finally from the Compaq forum moderator, and he said that the 1500T will not accept a 12.5 mm drive like the IBM 60GH but will accept any of the 9.5 mm drives. Just want to be sure before I order.