Replacing Laptop Hard drive

[albinoduck44]

I know There is probably a more specific category to post this under but owell.
So, I own a hp pavilion dv600 laptop and it came w/ a 80GB hard drive.
I'm running low on Hard disk space and i was wondering how much work and how much money it would cost to purchase a hard drive and cloning software off some website and do it myself.or, have someone do it for me. Can somone just give me the 411 on the difficulties of replacing a laptop harddrive and what not? Maybe a few links for help or some help finding a hard drive compatible w/ my computer.
thanks

[#43 fan]

Well, replacing the Hard Drive isn't all that difficult.
Transferring the data on the other hand, can be.
The least expensive is backing up all your data onto DVD's, and then transferring that onto the new hard drive, you also may need a new Windows disc.
Another option is transferring your data to an external Hard Drive, and then putting the data onto the new hard drive.
Another option is cloning your drive, but I don't have experience with it.

[sr71000]

transferring data from laptop hard drive to laptop hard drive can be a bit more tricky. What's your budget on this?

[DanU]

Hi and welcome to Techimo.

Upgrading you laptop's hard drive is relatively easy. I recently upgraded two of mine.

You need to figure out first what physical size (inches) and electrical interface (SATA/PATA) your current hard drive is before buying a new, bigger (capacity-wise) hard drive. Most laptops use a 2.5" SATA or PATA hard drive.

One that's done, you'll need to connect the new hard drive to your laptop somehow. I used a USB to 2.5" hard drive adapter. You can also use a USB to 2.5" (or 1.8" if that's your laptop) hard drive enclosure.

Then download and run the disk cloning software. This is freely available from the hard drive manufacturer. E.g. Western Digital's software is called Data Lifeguard. Follow the instructions and it will copy (clone) your current hard drive to the new hard drive.

Once the cloning is done, you will need to remove the old hard drive and install the new one. Laptops hard drives are typically screwed into a tray which slides in/out of the laptop. You will need swap out the hard drives from the tray.

That's it! There may be some issues if you've got a really old computer which won't recognize the full capacity of the newer, larger hard drive. Sometimes a BIOS update or software patch is available to fix this.