Dell Inspiron 1525 - Upgrade Advice Please (Hard Drive, WiFi, Bluetooth...)

Hello all,

Ive got a reasonably new Inspiron 1525 laptop, with a 160GB hard drive and a 500GB external My Book for all my music, documents and videos. Yesterday the external hard drive died (chkdsk reported and "unknown error" and said the drive was "raw"!) After removing it and leaving it for a day, chkdsk ran on boot and magically managed to repair the drive (thank god). But this experience has shocked me into doing something.

First, i want to do something about the hard drive situation. I am going to RMA the WD drive (obviously), but am thinking of upgrading my internal drive. The problem is, with 500GB worth of data on my external drive, i have no where large enough to back it up. So im thinking of upgrading the drive to a 500GB one (or larger) and backing up to there. Any advice? Im looking at the WD Blue but am open to any suggestions.

Second, the WD MyBook i have has USB, FireWire 400 / 800 and eSATA connections. I feel but just using the USB at the moment i am wasting it. Can i upgrade the inbuilt FireWire 400 to 800 or add an eSATA card to the laptop? What do you recommend?

While i was tearing the laptop apart and upgrading i thought i might as well go all out. So, bluetooth and WiFi. At the moment ive got the 4965 and the Marvell Yukon 88E8040. I was thinking of upgrading the WiFi to the 5300 (or even 5350). Any advice / issues? The 88E8040 is only Fast Ethernet, is there a way to get Gig Ethernet? Finally, anyway to get bluetooth in this laptop? Ive seen the "355" advertised, is this any good? Any recommendations?

I realise there is a TON of questions there, but any upgrade advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

 

And express card from newegg would be the only way I know to get eSATA (dont know the speed).

WD black or blue 500GB 2.5'' HD is good.
What is you ram?

 

Thanks for the response. Forgot to mention im in the UK, so newegg is (unfortunately) not an option.

Oh yeah, forgot to say that the slot where a remote should go (im pretty sure that is the express card slot you mention) is empty. So that could be an option,

I was looking at the WD blue, but now ive seen the 7000.4. What are the reviews like on them? I do a bit of VMware work, so i think the boost to 7200 RPM could help.

Ive got 4GB RAM and Vista x64.

Cheers.

 

I dont think 7200rpm is worth it but if you are doing large data transfers often then the faster speed could be useful

I am sure the expresscard could be bought elsewhere

 

Thanks for the continued advice.

I was wondering whether anyone could advise me on the firewire situation? Is there a way to upgrade the 400 to 800?

Also, what would you say is the best 500GB 7200 2.5" drive?

Thanks

 

As for that hard drive "failing". it might be bad at all. RAW just means it has no file system on it. Use that drive (like in an USB enclosure), back up the data, then go to the Control Panel and go to admin tools, then go to system configuration, then click on computer mgmt. Then go to drive options, you will see the RAW drive there. Format it and I would put $$ on that the drive will come back to life. GOod luCK!!!!!