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comparing newegg with dell for upgrading my e1505 laptop

R

rdulay8

Junior Member
Hi, I am looking to upgrade my cheap e1505 with a new hard drive, DVD burner, and more RAM. Using my service tag on Dell's website, I found these parts:

http://accessories.us.dell.com...=167679&chassisid=8438
http://accessories.us.dell.com...=167679&chassisid=8438
http://accessories.us.dell.com...=167679&chassisid=8438
http://accessories.us.dell.com...=167679&chassisid=8438

The total comes to $375, before tax and shipping, which is more than I am looking to spend. However, looking at newegg.com, I found these similar parts:

http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16822146226
http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16817106099
http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16827152073
http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16820145157

The new total is only $275, with NO TAX before shipping. My question is this: Is the extra $100+ worth knowing that my upgrades are Dell brand, and therefore guaranteed compatible to fit snugly and work in my laptop? Or is it worth saving $100+ and taking a risk on the parts from newegg? I use newegg for all my desktop needs, but I am not so sure with my laptop. Please advise me on what I should do, all suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

-Robert
 
Dell doesn't manufacture their peripherals, all the parts on your list are name brand components, except the USB box, which is a minor peripheral that just has to work. The only difference is the extra hundred dollar bill you'll spend getting them from Dell.

If you don't need it, you can always send it to me. 😉
 
Thanks for the quick reply. I thought Dell made their upgrades, hence the higher prices? Anyways, you made me more comfortable going with newegg. I have a new question: My e1505 has a stock 5400rpm, 60gb hard drive. My problem is my "C" drive only has 38.74gb, while my "D" drive has 12.45gb. I realize that this is because of the Dell backup. I want to clone my "C" Drive to the new drive. I know I have to buy an external enclosure for the stock Dell drive, but how would I go about cloning just the "C" drive? I do not want that waste of a "D" drive on my new HD. So in the end, I want what is currently on my "C" drive on the new Seagate I listed above, with all the extra disk space. I have never cloned a disk so all help would be appreciated!

-Robert
 
Norton Ghost allows you the option to clone from "Drive to Drive" or "Partition to Partition." To clone one partition of a drive to another drive, select "Partition to Partition." The target drive will only have one partition, which is what you need.

I've often wondered how well machines with those useless backup partitions would work if you removed them. You might want to ask Dell's tech support what would happen... once you get past their expected reply warning you that they "don't recommend" doing so.

Or you could safely do it, yourself by cloning your entire drive to any other drive set up with two partitions. Once you confirm that the backup is good, you could delete the backup partition to see if the system works without it.

If there's any problem, just clone the backup partition back to the laptop. If there's no problem, you could use Partition Magic to to wipe the backup partition and expand the main one to fill the 60 GB drive.

If that's enough for you, at least for awhile, you can save some more money by using a 3.5" drive and an appropriate USB box because 3.5" drives are much less expensive. You could even partition a larger drive to hold multiple sequential backups. To do that, you'd also clone "Partition to Partition" from the one on the lap top to whichever partition you wanted to use on the backup drive. 🙂
 
The thing is I want to first put the Seagate in the 2.5" enclosure, then clone from the stock Dell drive to the new one. Then I want to swap them out, so that my laptop now has the larger, faster drive. Then I have the Dell in the enclosure as a backup... Is this feasible?

Also, is there a way to use a free software program to clone my drives? Norton Ghost is $70 that I am not willing to spend. I see there is a free trialware option on their site, but will that work fine for me for just the one or two times I need to use it? Or does it purposely make you buy the whole thing to "unlock" the full feature software? Thanks again for all the help
 
The thing is I want to first put the Seagate in the 2.5" enclosure, then clone from the stock Dell drive to the new one. Then I want to swap them out, so that my laptop now has the larger, faster drive. Then I have the Dell in the enclosure as a backup... Is this feasible?
Click to expand...
Yep, That's the ticket!


Also, is there a way to use a free software program to clone my drives?
Click to expand...
I prefer Acronis True Image for this job, and their trial is fully functional for 15 days. You might wanna keep it for your backups.
 
Better yet, download Seagate DiscWizard from Seagate under downloads, get Acronis for free, granted its a lite version of True Image but pretty much will do everything you need.
 
"I prefer Acronis True Image for this job, and their trial is fully functional for 15 days."




Does that mean if you use Acronis - clone a drive or two, keep your backups for 6 months, change your CMOS time to within the 15 days, use your image to write to the hdd so that Acronis thinks you are within the trial period,
Then you have a fully functional copy of Acronis for free????

Doesn't sound right.
But does sound good.

 
I always wondered how 15 day trial would work for something like that, guess if you made a boot disc you'd be good, anyway thats why he'd be better off downloading DiscWizard, not trial, it's free.
 
When you buy parts from Newegg, those parts are then covered under their individual warranties. So, Dell will not support or replace any parts you did not buy from them.
 
Thanks for the advice so far... What is Seagate DiscWizard? Does it do the same job as Acronis for free? And if so, why would I even need Acronis?
 
Here's an update on my current situation:

I got the shipment from newegg, and as of now I have my new Seagate in an enclosure connected to my laptop via USB. I tried using Seagate DiscWizard, but for some reason my laptop does not recognize my new drive as a Seagate. Apparently for DiscWizard to work, at least one of my drives has to be Seagate branded. Anyways, so I moved on to the trial version of Acronis True Image. I have not been able to figure out how to move just the "C" partition onto my new drive; instead, it only offers me the option to clone the entire stock Dell drive over to the new one, while proportionally expanding each partition. In other words, the useless "Backup" partition will still be on my new drive, but even worse take up more space than it did before.

I am getting frustrated with the whole thing, and am considering just buying Vista and installing it on the Seagate, swapping it into my laptop, then starting from scratch. Is there any way I can acheive my initial goal? If I have to buy a $50 program to make it work, I might as well go ahead and upgrade to Vista, so buying the full-feature version of Acronis or other product is not an option. Thanks in advance!
 
Originally posted by: Old Hippie
The thing is I want to first put the Seagate in the 2.5" enclosure, then clone from the stock Dell drive to the new one. Then I want to swap them out, so that my laptop now has the larger, faster drive. Then I have the Dell in the enclosure as a backup... Is this feasible?
Click to expand...
Yep, That's the ticket!


Also, is there a way to use a free software program to clone my drives?
Click to expand...
I prefer Acronis True Image for this job, and their trial is fully functional for 15 days. You might wanna keep it for your backups.
Click to expand...

For a reminder this is what I would like to accomplish. The Acronis trial has proven it does not do the job
 
Since you already have everything, why not increase your "c" partition as big as it will go in Acronis, clone, then install the HDD, then delete the unused partition? If you do that, you will have to extend the 'C' partition by using the command line tool "diskpart". It has an "extend" function which can extend partitions on your disk. Just start diskpart from a command prompt, then enter '?' and you'll get a list of possible commands.
I see now that Acronis only lets you create a partition while cloning. I thought you could delete also. 😱
 
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