Inspiron 1520 Replacing Hard Drive and Installing Vista

Hey guys, I'm going to be selling my Inspiron 1520 soon and am going to replace the current 160GB hard drive with a new one to protect my data and use it as an external drive. First, I'm looking at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149073 as my new drive. Do you think it will be a reliable drive?

Also, I will obviously be installing Windows Vista Home Premium on the new drive. Is there any guide to installing it on a brand new drive with all the proper drivers installed and the media direct and recovery partitions? I want to make the computer just like it brand new when the new owner starts it up.

So, if anyone can help me I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Granted I'm only one person and it is the only toshiba drive i have ever owned, but the Toshiba drive in my 1520 died after about 8 months of use.

To install the software/drivers, you should be able to use the stuff that came with the laptop right from dell.

 

Does anyone else have any experience with Toshiba hard drives? Should I go with another brand? Also, does replacing the hard drive void the warranty?

 

It won't as long as Dell doesn't find out. This is easily managed by keeping the drive bootable and simply switching the drives back if any repair work needs to be done on it.

 

I'm also considering just running dban and keeping the stock hard drive in. For anyone that has experience with dban is it easy to use and does it really delete the entire hard drive?