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    vostro harddrive upgrade

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by Naws, Dec 25, 2007.

  1. Naws

    Naws Notebook Enthusiast

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    Is it possible to upgrade the hard drive on a Vostro 1400?
    I ask this because I want to save money now buy getting an 80 gb harddrive and then upgrade a year or so from now when i need a bigger one.

    Would a hard drive upgrade replace the current drive or can I get it as an additional harddrive?
    Also how does an external harddrive work?

    sorry I am new to this
     
    Naws, Dec 25, 2007
    #1
  2. f4ding

    f4ding Laptop Owner

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    OO yeah!!! Replace replace..External Harddrive connect through USB or Firewire port on tha machineee
     
    f4ding, Dec 25, 2007
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  3. Zahn1138

    Zahn1138 Notebook Consultant

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    An external hard drive would be in a separate casing with its own power source and linked to the laptop via a USB 2.0 cable.

    You wouldn't be able to read and right as fast, but it would be sufficient. It would also be an additional item to carry around.

    I believe that with most 17" laptops, there are two HDD slots, but not in the Vostro 1400. You'll have to take your old one out and install Windows on the new one. There might be a way simply to copy the OS and boot sectors onto the new one (I know you can do it with the villainy which is Macintosh), but I don't know about with PCs.
     
    Zahn1138, Dec 25, 2007
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  4. Kdawgca

    Kdawgca rotaredoM repudrepuS RBN

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    Ram and hard drives are very easy to upgrade. It would replace the current hard drive since you only have room for one physically hard drive in the vostro 1400. Look at support.dell.com for directions on how to remove the HDD.

    Also make sure that you have a recovery or driver cd or have a backup/clone of your current hard drive so that you can have a fully functional lappy after you install the new hard drive.

    Happy Holidays.

    -Kdawgca
     
    Kdawgca, Dec 25, 2007
    #4
  5. MYK

    MYK Newbie NBR Reviewer

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    You can use Norton ghost or acronis to do so on windows. I'm actually in the same boat. Except my boat sunk and I'm fresh installing xp on the new hdd as I'm writing this.
     
    MYK, Dec 25, 2007
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  6. RobtRoma

    RobtRoma Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yup... It's very possible and very easy to replace the hard drive. Unscrew a couple of screws, pop out the drive, pop the adapter off the old drive and put it on the new one, pop the new drive in the the machine and rescrew the screws. Just make sure the new drive has the correct interface (my Vostro 1700 has SATA)

    The hard part is transfering the data on the drive. I just purchased a Data Transfer kit from CMS products ( http://www.cmsproducts.com/products/data_transfer_solutions.htm). It includes a program called BounceBack Transfer and an external USB case. When you are done transfering to the new drive you can insert the old one into the external case and have even more backup space...

    Alternately, you can just install and format the new drive and reinstall all your programs. I like to do a format/reinstall every 12-18 months just to get rid of all the crap I install along the way and perk up my PC's...
     
    RobtRoma, Dec 25, 2007
    #6