Replace hard drive in laptop for bigger one?

[bigben2wardpitt]

If I want to do this, what steps do I take towards doing it? I am guessing, I back up my hard drive first, then take out the existing hard drive, put all that stuff that was on on the old hard drive, transfer it to a new, bigger hard drive, and then place that back in the laptop. But I am wondering if that is even possible, in terms of the hard drive being internal-- the same size and everything that is. Just some help on how I should go about doing this would be great

Thanks

 

[Tsaico]

It is cheap and easy. Generally the hardest part is keeping the pins lined up and figuring out how to remove your drive from the cage that it sits in. As for cost, you can buy decent 7200 drives for $100 bucks or so.

Generally one of the panels under your laptop is teh bay for your drive, it should be roughly the size of a pack of cards. The lid is usually held by a single screw or sometimes a couple, so if you need to take out lots of them to open it, that is the wrong lid. The cage then is usually just sitting in there, using the pressure on the drive pins and the lid to keep it in place. THe cage should just pull out. The drive itself is attached to the cage and is usually held by two or four screws on the sides or the bottom. There is also often a anti-static/or nonconducting peice of plastic (kinda like a thin peice of film) on the bottom of the Hard Drive. If you can, tansfer that to the new drive. replace screws, cage, then lid. Put in restore CD and you are done!

 

[morkman100]

If you plan on keeping your original OS install and data, use something like Acronis True Image to clone or transfer your current info there. You'll probably need a 2.5" drive USB external case for your drive to do the transfer.

Upgraded my laptop from 40GB to a 120GB drive like this. Took about 25 minutes to do.

 

[Old Hippie]

More info.