replacing hd in a precision m50

I currently own a precision m50 with a 40g hd. Was thinking of replacing the hd with a 80-100g one. Is it just a matter of removing it and putting it a new one and then re-installing window? Is there anything i should be aware of? ie the motherboard may not support a bigger hd and so on. Appreciate it. Thanks!

 

The service manual, located on Dell's site, should explain the procedure. Just make sure you get the right connector, in this case ide. Other than that you should be good. You will have to re-install Windows so make sure you have the discs.

 

Thanks! Really appreciate it. This website rocks!

 

one more thing. The following is my current hd info

HD,40GB,I,9.5MM,5.4K,HIT-EUCL

will there be any problem if i replace it with let's a 80g 7200rpm ide hd? or is it safer to keep it at 5200rpm?

 

The Precision M50 have no problems with supporting any 2.5" IDE hard drives, be it 4200rpm, 5400rpm or 7200rpm. And it shouldn't have a problem supporting the largest capacity 2.5" drive (which is 200GB although only in 4200rpm flavour).

5400rpm is the baseline recommendation these days, as 4200rpm will be way too slow. And you will notice a difference in over system response time (such as when working with Photoshop), file copy times etc. with a 7200rpm drive.

If you have the budget, go for the best, I'd really recommend the 100GB HGST 7K100 drive over the Seagate Momentus 7200.1 (on the various hardware/review sites I've browsed through, the HGST has a slight edge over the Seagate in terms of random access time and overall performance while having similar temperature/acoustics).

 

Thanks. Just what i needed to know. Will head out to get the hd. Cheers!

 

Note that you won't be able to have both HDs in the laptop at once - so move data to someplace external before removing the old one.

 

Or you can buy a case for your old hard drive then just plug it into the usb port for access to the files on your old hard drive. Works well for extra storage and backups as well. I personally use this one:

Link

 

$19 - that's pretty cheap... good idea ZaZ.

(only make sure you buy one for 2.5" disks if you want to do this).

 

cheers! that's exactly what i had in mind. Put in new hd and use the old one as an external and then transfer files back.