[The Admiral]

I have a Lenovo 3000 N100 laptop and I love it, but I want to upgrade my HDD for more space, and donate the one I currently have to a friend. So I have a couple of questions...

1) Is there a way (cheap, if not free) to create an image of my hard drive so that when I get the new hard drive, I can transfer everything over (OS, programs, files, etc)?
2) I can't find any laptop HDDs with a rotation speed of more than 5400 rpm. Is this pretty standard for laptop HDDs? I'm running XP SP2, so it's not like I need the extra speed. But it would certainly be nice.
3) I can get a 120 GB drive through a company with which my college is associated, and can do so for only $90. Would this be considered a suspicious price, and should I look elsewhere?
4) I plan on giving my current HDD to a friend for her currently dead laptop (but it's just the HDD that killed it, I'm pretty sure.) Could I reformat the drive in my laptop and setup XP on it, or would I have to setup the OS after I install the HDD in her laptop?
5) Are all laptop HDDs pretty standard? Would my HDD fit in her computer? I don't see why not... but I'm not sure if there is in fact an industry standard.

Thanks in advance for your help. I'm really most concerned about questions 1 and 3. No need to try to tackle all five, but kudos if you do!

-Steven T.

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1) Is there a way (cheap, if not free) to create an image of my hard drive so that when I get the new hard drive, I can transfer everything over (OS, programs, files, etc)?

check out driveimage XML...it's a free cloning tool that i've used on different occasions...it's very functional...but has a little bit of a learning curve...i'd sugest geting an external enclosure to put the new drive in...then use the UBCD4WIN bootdisk to run driveimage xml (comes packaged with the UBCD) to do a disk to disk copy...then you'd need to expand the partition with something like gparted...then you might need to change a few boot files on the drive (i had to modify the boot.ini to point to the proper disk after the copy and that was about it)

someone may come up with a quicker option but this is a method that i know has worked and is free

i THINK acronis true image is capable of doing all this as well (possibly in less steps) but it's not free

3) I can get a 120 GB drive through a company with which my college is associated, and can do so for only $90. Would this be considered a suspicious price, and should I look elsewhere?

Tigerdirect has 120GB drives for cheaper than that...but i can't say if the specs match yours...nor can i say wether you'd split the difference in shipping costs so...it's up to you

4) I plan on giving my current HDD to a friend for her currently dead laptop (but it's just the HDD that killed it, I'm pretty sure.) Could I reformat the drive in my laptop and setup XP on it, or would I have to setup the OS after I install the HDD in her laptop?

you could (and should) format the drive in your computer (i'd suggest using DBAN) but you would have to install windows once you install the drive in the new machine...and you'd have to use their license not yours

5) Are all laptop HDDs pretty standard? Would my HDD fit in her computer? I don't see why not... but I'm not sure if there is in fact an industry standard.

they're all 2.5 inch drives..it's just a question as to whether it's sata or IDE

[dsenette]

1) Is there a way (cheap, if not free) to create an image of my hard drive so that when I get the new hard drive, I can transfer everything over (OS, programs, files, etc)?

check out driveimage XML...it's a free cloning tool that i've used on different occasions...it's very functional...but has a little bit of a learning curve...i'd sugest geting an external enclosure to put the new drive in...then use the UBCD4WIN bootdisk to run driveimage xml (comes packaged with the UBCD) to do a disk to disk copy...then you'd need to expand the partition with something like gparted...then you might need to change a few boot files on the drive (i had to modify the boot.ini to point to the proper disk after the copy and that was about it)

someone may come up with a quicker option but this is a method that i know has worked and is free

i THINK acronis true image is capable of doing all this as well (possibly in less steps) but it's not free

3) I can get a 120 GB drive through a company with which my college is associated, and can do so for only $90. Would this be considered a suspicious price, and should I look elsewhere?

Tigerdirect has 120GB drives for cheaper than that...but i can't say if the specs match yours...nor can i say wether you'd split the difference in shipping costs so...it's up to you

4) I plan on giving my current HDD to a friend for her currently dead laptop (but it's just the HDD that killed it, I'm pretty sure.) Could I reformat the drive in my laptop and setup XP on it, or would I have to setup the OS after I install the HDD in her laptop?

you could (and should) format the drive in your computer (i'd suggest using DBAN) but you would have to install windows once you install the drive in the new machine...and you'd have to use their license not yours

5) Are all laptop HDDs pretty standard? Would my HDD fit in her computer? I don't see why not... but I'm not sure if there is in fact an industry standard.

they're all 2.5 inch drives..it's just a question as to whether it's sata or IDE

[The Admiral]

they're all 2.5 inch drives..it's just a question as to whether it's sata or IDE

Are all IDE drives created equal? I see that some HDDs are EIDE and some are IDE... but I can't really figure out if an Inspiron 5100 uses an IDE or a EIDE drive. Or is there even a difference? Are IDE and PATA the same?

Edited by The Admiral, 05 September 2007 - 08:25 PM.

[Neil Jones]

To all intents and purposes, PATA, EIDE and IDE are exactly the same things, talking about a bog standard normal 40 pin hard drive.

Back in the old days (when it were all fields round 'ere), IDE and EIDE were two separate things. IDE drives were those drives under 528Mb in size and EIDE drives were those bigger than 528Mb but up to 8.4Gb. After that it becomes more technical because the need to talk to drives bigger than 8.4Gb became implemented and built into the BIOS.

Technically EIDE and IDE as terms in their own right no longer exist - they've been replaced by the tem PATA - due to the rise of SATA drives.

[The Admiral]

Well I've got another question that probably belongs in another forum, but I'm keeping it with my previous thread.
I'm not too worried about upgrading my HDD... it looks like DriveImage XML is just what I need to clone my drive. But, I think that upgrading my friend's computer is going to be harder. I just got off the phone with Dell, and it looks like they are going to send me everything BUT the drivers (since they don't make the drivers CD anymore). My question is this: am I going to have to get drivers for every little bit of hardware, or will some of them be generic drivers that come with Windows XP (CD drive, etc.)? The system is an Inspiron 5100.
Thanks for your help! I figure I can come here, because the support rep on the phone was just terrible. >.<

[dsenette]

some of them will be generic...the rest will be on the dell website....or you can get something like drivermagician and copy all the non windows dirvers to CD before upgrading

[The Admiral]

I don't think driver magician is what I'm looking for... It seems like it extracts drivers from the hard drive before a reformat/reinstall. But the hard drive isn't working in the first place, so that's not what I need. I'll look around on the Dell website and just download everything. lol
Thanks for your help dsenette and Neil!

[123Runner]

You should be able to get everything you need (drivers) off the Dell site.
All Dell's have an express service tag. With this you can go to Dell and get what you want.
You can do this with another comp, not just a Dell (so you can get prepared) for most of it.

The express code is a unique 5-7 digit alphanumeric code usually on the side or back.
It is also in the comp under programs/ dell accessories. (I know you can't get it this way tho)

[The Admiral]

[UPDATE]
So change of plans... my friend's HDD is IDE, but mine is SATA, and I accidentally bought an IDE drive. So I'm just giving that to her. It is a Fujitsu MHT2060AT IDE drive.
We have the CDs from Dell (I'm not sure exactly what... I just know that it's all the CDs except for the Drivers CD. I think I have all the required drivers from the Dell website... I think.
I know how to physically change the hard drive... can someone guide me through setting up XP and the drivers? I'm mostly concerned about the drivers... I'm pretty sure that it's hard to use a CD drive without the CD drive drivers...
Thanks!

[EDIT]
Her Dell Service Tag is GJN1B41.

Edited by The Admiral, 24 September 2007 - 06:33 PM.

[Troy]

Your computer should automatically detect and use the CD drive, so no worries there. Windows XP is actually pretty good at detecting most things, so once you have finished installing XP and logged in for the first time, anything that XP does not recognise will call up the "Found New Hardware Wizard". Use your drivers to "fill the gaps" here, and it should all be good.