New Hardrive replacement & install of vista help!

Hi All,
I wonder if anyone can point me in the right direction!

My sons 1525 inspirion has developed a hard drive prob after he dropped it , in as much as it is not detecting the 120gb SATA seagate hard drive. I have taken the drive out to try & reseat as per the onscreen instructions but to no avail, so assume the drive is knackered through shock!

My question is, what is the correct way to install the OS + drivers on a new HD, can I put it on a partition to aid future easy restores? & how do I go about it.

Any info would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks
Gazzataf

 

Well
Seems that quite a few people read the problem but no one has got any correct idea how to help sort this issue, I thought this site was for expert help ! obviously I was wrong.

Gazzataf

 

That's a little rough, i'll help anyways though...

Did your son drop the hard drive, or the computer itself? You can always do a dell diagnostic to see if the hard drive is functioning.

If it was just the hard drive, that is an easy enough fix especially as hard drives have gained in size and lowered in price. If it was the entire laptop however, there may or may not be problems with some of the internals, and I would refer back to the dell diagnostic to point out what hardware is in failure.

The correct way to install is to reinstall windows on either the old drive (or a new one if other is in failure)

Reinstall most current drivers from Welcome to Dell Support The order of reinstall is roughly explained here.

As far as partitioning, that will only help if your operating system on the other partition gets corrupted and you to reinstall windows. In that scenario your documents and pictures and all other items you choose to put on there would all be safe. However to protect against drive failure you would need to back up the entire hard drive using the windows built in backup or a program such as acronis true image, and put them on disc or something like an external hard drive. However if you want to partition take a look at any one of these links (fyi just a broad google search since i am not aware of what o/s you have and x86 or x64 google disk partition

 

First off;

Your "recovery" partition from your old drive is gone.

You may need a new hard drive, 1525 has 2 screws for the HDD and the caddy + HDD will pop out. Then replace it with any SATA drive you prefer. For the best deal for space get the 500 GB WD Scorpio Blue ~50-60 dollars.

If you made recovery discs when it was brand new use those. That will reinstall all the content again. If not, use the Dell discs that came with it. If you cannot find those anymore, use OEM discs and activate with the COA on the bottom.

Hit F12 and check CD/DVD drive. This will boot from the disc with your Dell discs in it (or OEM if you cannot locate them)

After that it is self explanatory.

 

Hi guys
Sorry to sound so terse, but it at least got a couple of guys who know what they're talking about to answer!

The HD is dead as I have done the dell diagnostic test. I also have a dell 1545 studio with a sata HD and tried that out in it and all was well with the 1525.

I have now purchased a new hitachi sata 250gb for £55 :cry: , see things are a lot more expensive in the UK unless you try ebay but with xmas & heavy snow around deliveries wouldn't be well until after the new year, so had to bite the bullet there!.

Once again thanks for the advice.
Merry xmas
Gazzataf

 

Well good luck with the reinstall, should go pretty smooth. The long part is reinstalling all the apps and whatnot.

Also, I don't know how much that 250gb was but here in the US I got a 640gb for $100

 

Dang stuff is expensive in the UK...I can get a 500 GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue for 55~ USD..

Hopefully you don't get a DOA drive.