Easy way to add HD to old laptop

[Doot]

Hi, Whats the easiest and cheapest way I could add an HD to an old laptop. I`m talking pre win 95, P120. I found one that has a 1gig HD but I know I can`t just take that out and replace with a bigger one because of the bios etc.

Thanks Doot

[Wolfreakyn]

Make and model?

[Doot]

Don`t know yet. What should I look for? any make or model that stands out? I thought I would ask on here before I got one.

Are there any pcmia cards that add ide or usb to a laptop.

Doot

[FreakyOCR]

If it will support it, I have a 3GB IBM Travelstar, it should probably work with that system and will give you 3x as much space. Man I feel like a selling spammer. Shoot me a pm if that's what you were looking for... give me a disgraceful look if I missed the mark..

[Doot]

thanks freaky i`m just after the info at the moment and I think I`m a little too far from you. but thanks all the same.

Doot

[Wolfreakyn]

It's the height of the drive that would be one problem, older thicker the usual rule so larger one would physically fit. After that the only other problem you can run into is a proprietary mount ie there isn't 44 pins on the one in the current cradle. Getting around the BIOS just needs a program like EZbios, or some of what we call older ones do have BIOS updates, AST Ascentias had large drive BIOSes' before they died out.

[FreakyOCR]

Originally posted by Doot
thanks freaky i`m just after the info at the moment and I think I`m a little too far from you. but thanks all the same.

Doot

lol didn't even notice. Might be a few pounds to ship to the UK hey?

[Doot]

Too much for me freaky and hey it`ll get lost in our postal system

Wolf, its not the mounting of the drive as it won`t be in its case. I just need to know how I can get say a 20gb HD connected to an old laptop. I have a 44 to 40 pin lead somewhere from my old Amiga.

Doot

[Wolfreakyn]

Some old models (a lot actually) came with expansion ports, rarely for a HD though. If you had the pinouts you could try to wire one up!, wouldn't be fun. Your best bet (if I'm reading you correctly) is to look for someone with a Backpack HD that would let you check out their cable, etc. Last thing I can think of is if it's not that old there are USB HD's.

[Doot]

I thought that I might have to go the usb route, but as I thought about it that may be best way. I`m trying to make an mp3 player so if it was a usb hd I could just unplug it to add more mp3`s from my main system.

All I gotta figure out now is a way of powering one when I get one.

Doot

[Wolfreakyn]

Do you mean power the HD? If so you could tap a PS2 mouse port any laptop with a USB port will have the PS2 port.

[hickory]

Look around for an old IBM 700 series laptop. Awhile back I sold one for less than a hundred and it had a 1 gb had. I don't think it had a USB port but now you can get a Serial to USB adapter that should work just fine. With the adapter you can then add the extra HD with a backpack or something similar. You'll want one with at least a CD-rom drive to so you can easily install any necessary software.

[Doot]

Wolf, I mean power the laptop. The one I`m looking at has no batt or psu. The psu jack takes 19v and the batt is 10.8v. I`m still looking into that one.

hickory, I found an old toshiba that is cheap so i`ll look at that for now. It has a usb port so I can hopefully add an hd there on some usb to ide. But if the tosh will take a 20gb drive that would be ok for what I want to use it for.


Doot

[Brondum9]

I cleaned up my HDD on the laptop and used and old HDD with about 12Gigs and a HDD case to hold it. USB and i have extra space