Question about upgrading harddrive.

I am considering to upgrade my harddrive by myself. Anyone have done that before? Is it hard and anything I should beware of?

Also, Hitachi or Seagate 's 7200rpm harddrive are what in my choices because they are the only brands I could find on newegg which offering 7200 rpm harddrive. So is there any other brand offering 7200 rpm laptop harddrive?

 

ive swapped out my initial 60g HD in my old Sony for a 160g Hitachi and there were no probs what so ever. I also went with the higher 5400rpm.
There isnt very many 7200rpm 2.5's and i did look at the 7200rpm Hitachi but was advised at the time to not upgrade to it unless i totally felt comfortable with the excessive heat that it would make.

SInce things like HDs cant be returned if you didnt like them i chose NOT to go with the 7200.
I suggest to find a notebook or friend who has upgraded to a 7200rpm first and have a good look at it and its cooling.
Better be safe than sorry and waste all ur money

 

They are pretty much the only ones with 80gb+ 7200rpm 2.5" hard drives.

Depending on what notebook you have, you have to either look for PATA(IDE) or SATA hard drives, and make sure you don't buy the wrong one.

HD's are a breeze to install, unscrew HD bottom cover, take the casing out, unscrew HD from casing, and do everything backwards to put it back in.

 

The hardest part of the install is restoring your data.

Heat should not be a huge issue.

 

Oh, I forgot to state what laptop i am using. My laptop is Asus A8JP, according to the spec from newegg, I am not 100% sure but I think it is a sata interface.

and the 2 hd which is avaliable :

HITACHI Travelstar 7K100 HTS721010G9SA00 (0A25016) 100GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Notebook Hard Drive - OEM

or

Seagate Momentus 7200.1 ST910021AS 100GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Notebook Hard Drive - OEM

They are same price. However Hitachi has 1 year warranty and Seagate has 5 years.

Addition, is a external enclosure like "APRICORN EZ-UP-S 2.5" USB 2.0 External Enclosure - Retail" neccessary for trasferring data from old hd to new hd?

sorry for so many question

 

No worries, we're here to help!

As for the A8jp, it uses a SATA HD, so either choices are good.

For the external, it'll work fine.

 

Well, after you swap out the drives you will need a way to transfer all your data thats currently on your existing drive.
The 2.5 external enclosure allows you to transfer your data via usb that comes with the external enclosure.

Its cheap and a good thing to buy anyways cause after you transfer all you data to your new drive you can format the old drive and use it as a lil external backup drive or use it to store vid or photos or mp3's etc

 

Thanks for the reply, they are very helpful and I am going to purchase the hd with the enclosure (combo with 10 dollar discount)

 

Oh, one more question:

If I am planning to sell my old hd, do I need the enclosure still?

 

Unless you are still gonna use it, but if you don't have a HD for it, then no.

 

I have heard that some companies consider the warranty void if the hard drive is changed. Actually, I've heard it's void if you take the laptop apart in any way, and also for any kind of upgrade except the RAM. Is this true? What is Asus's position on this?

 

Well, its really really hard to say, they've(ASUS), have been lenient on it and as long as if it breaks down and it has nothing to do with the HD, then its all clear.\

But to be safe, keep it in an external enclosure or something.

 

Just keep the original HDD and RAM and if you have to RMA the unit swap the original parts back in.

I upgraded to a seagate 5400rpm 160gb drive, and I am now waiting for Seagate to release their new 7200 160gb drive and I will upgrade to that when it comes out, hopefully it will be out soon.

 

ya its out now nz its $300.

 

if you are thinking about switcihing out your harddirve then you should use the new 7200 rpm seagate harddrives that just came out