Inspiron 1525 + HDD + Ram Spec

Hi guys. My dad is soon to be ordering a 1525, he is just waiting on me for to get my Asus F3 back from repair. I had a quick question. Im going to be taking 2 of the 3gb ram module out and placing it in my laptop, and replacing it with a 1gb module from mine...can i just confirm that they use the pc2-5300's that my Asus uses.

Also, im placing my 160gb hdd in his, and taking his 320gb hdd ( yes im pretty much robbing him senseless, but he doesnt really care). Do dell laptops come with os installation discs so that im able to jus restore the os/drivers/software on the new hdd?

Thanks in advance. Im in the UK btw if that changes anything

EDIT: I forgot to add, what are the 320gb hdd's like that come with the inspiron. I know mines a seagate

 

To answer your first question. Yes, the inspiron 1525 uses pc2-5300 sodimm or 667-mhz rams. I'd like to suggest that you get only the one 1-gig module 'cause a 2-gig ram doesn't really have a big difference with a 3-gig ram system as far as I know. Oh, and also so that your dad could benefit from a faster system too. Just a suggestion though. Now, to answer your second question. It would definitely come with installation and driver discs, and also a restore partition in the hard drive and a media direct partition, so if you'll be exchanging drives, I suggest you do a repartition to save the smaller sized partitions from limbo. I'm not sure though what brand the hard drive will be. I believe Dell just puts in any brand they could hold on too, but others are free to correct me if I'm wrong. Oh, and I believe it doesn't matter where you're at. The above should always be the case.

 

Cheers for the help. What i plan to do with the hdd's is jus swap them, and use each companies restore cd's which should format the hdd and install the os and soft/bloat/ware onto them again (at least thats what the asus recovery disc does)

Regarding the Ram im not sure i quite get what you're saying. Once everything is replaced, his system will have 2x1gb's, and mine will have 1gb+2gb modules. I was always under the impression that 2gb is much preferable to have in vista than 1gb.

 

The OS installation cd for Dell is actually a pure OS installer, not a recovery CD like in other brands. So, by using the disc, you are actually doing a fresh install without any of the bloatwares when you first received the dell system. All them bloatwares are actually in the restore partition.

Regarding the ram, I thought you're going to remove the 2-gig ram from your pop's 3 gig of ram and leave him with only 1 gig. Ok, so that clears that up. So, now I know you have 2 gig already installed in yours. I thought at first you only had 1 gig and wanted to get the 2-gig stick from the Dell system. So, you're not totally ransacking your pop's, 'cause you're leaving him with a perfectly useful 2-gig ram vista machine, lol. My bad.

 

Haha, yea I'm still leaving with an adequate machine. To be honest, he doesn't need it and told me take whatever i wanted. Regarding the restore cd, thats good, im glad it jus installs windows and not the other unneccessary stuff. Thanks once again.