notebook harddrives: are they all standard?

[theNEOone]

aside from PATA vs. SATA, are all notebook hard drives interchangeable? can i buy a seagate SATA (150) drive and slap it in my HP (currently has a SATA II drive)?

i'm hoping putting in a 100gb 7200.1 drive to raplace the current 80gb 5400 rpm drive.


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[Lord Evermore]

Yeah they should all be standard. At most some makers (like Dell on PATA drives) like to use a stupid little adapter that connects to the standard drive connector in order to plug into a proprietary port in the laptop, so if you somehow lost that you'd have to buy a replacement from the OEM. SATA II controllers are backward compatible with SATA I drives; in desktops SATA II drives seem to all have a jumper to make them work on SATA I ports, I don't know if laptops will also have that issue.

 

[theNEOone]

thanks. i too was under the impression that they were all standard, however the images in HP's manual show a hard drive with connectors that don't quite match that of my seagate drive. perhaps the images aren't drawn accurately, but from what i can tell from the manual, the images are drawn fairly true-to-life.

HP pic 1
HP pic 2

Seagate drive


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[Lonyo]

How about removing the current HDD to look at it before buying the new HDD.
Probably the best way to be totally sure.

 

[theNEOone]

heh. i did it ass backwards.

i'm staring at the new drive...the computer has yet to arrive.


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[corkyg]

What you are seeing in the HP picture is the drive mounted in a tray or caddy. As was said, 2.5" drives that range from about 9 to 12mm thick are the laptop form factor standard. But, many laptops, including HP, Compaq, WinBook, and others, mount their HDDs in caddy-like trays. In the case of HP, this is done to provide for a simple 90 degree contact, as shown in your picture.

Obtaining an extra caddy or tray is not easy, but I have managed to do so in order to have a spare HDD ready to pop in at any sign of trouble.

This photo shows how the drive is placed in the caddy and the 90-degree connector adapter is then slipped on in current HP and Compaq machines:

HP-HDD1

And this shows the complete assembly ready to drop in.

HP-HDD2

BTW, the drive is the new Seagate 160 GB using perpendicular recording.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Originally posted by: theNEOone
thanks. i too was under the impression that they were all standard, however the images in HP's manual show a hard drive with connectors that don't quite match that of my seagate drive. perhaps the images aren't drawn accurately, but from what i can tell from the manual, the images are drawn fairly true-to-life.

HP pic 1
HP pic 2

Seagate drive


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Uhh...that's also a PATA drive in the HP pics. You can tell by the 4 pins to the side of the main connector, since the regular interface pins are obscured by the adapter.

Even if that's the manual for your machine, sometimes OEMs use "stock" install guides even when they don't apply to the particular machine the manual is for; I saw that done on another HP system's manual from another thread.

The great thing about SATA laptop drives is that they use standard SATA data and power connectors, so they can be plugged right into a desktop as well without need for an adapter. Some OEMs might still use an adapter though such as corkyg indicated, to provide a 90 degree connection so the drive can drop in instead of being slid in sideways.