Just to be 100% sure I'm buying the right hard rive for an upgrade...

I'm upgrading the hard drive in an MSI MS 1013, and it has a Fujitsu MHV2040AT HDD in it. Googling indicates this to be an ATA 100/ATA-6 HDD. So, assuming I were to order the following HDD, should it theoretically work?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148130

Nextly, what's the best way to get everything from the old drive onto the new drive? Anything at all I should know about the process of getting the new drive to work would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Edit: dammit, can't fix the typo in the title =(

 

You can use any 2.5" PATA hard drive, including the one you linked. It should be plug and play as well; you should not have to do anything fancy other than re-install your OS.

 

you probably should have gone for the hm160hc or wd2500beve... but anyway if you dont want to reinstall all your apps / backup your documents etc.. have a look into cloning your hd. you can use something like acronis

 

I haven't bought it yet, I was mostly just making sure I didn't pick the wrong interface. How easy is it to find 7200rpm PATA HDDs? I saw a couple on eBay but I don't want to pay more than $100.

If I were to clone my hard drive, would that make it so I could pop the new one in, and the computer would boot as though no change were made, since it the HDD would have the OS installed on it?

 

See the quick guide to cloning. (It is listed in the sticky index that no one reads).

John

 

its not just rpm that determines the speed of the hd, but things like platter density etc... The hm160hc is the fastest drive you can use in your system, faster than any 2.5" 7200rpm pata hd. so go for that.
The answer is yes to your second question.

 

Cool, much thanks everybody! !his site continues to demonstrate it has one of the most helpful communities you could ask for.

 

FInding a new 7200rpm ide harddrive is going to be near to impossible. They were phased out about 2 years ago.
The high density 5400rpm ATA-6 drives are actually faster than the 7200rpm drives since they use a more recent technology, perpendicular recording.

The Samsung HM160HC is the fastest mechanical harddrive for the ATA interface, beating out both the Hitachi 7K100 and seagate momentus 7200.1 series drives.
The western digital wd2500beve comes in a close second with its high density design.

here is my review of the samsung drive:
It can be had for about $60, and it will be nearly 2x faster than the seagate drive chosen.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=264209

K-TRON

 

That depends a ltitle on your definition of "fastest". It has the highest transfer rates of any 2.5" PATA, but I seriously doubt it has the fastest seek times. I've run several 15,000 rpm scsi drives that evaluated on transfer rate would be considered inferior to some 7200 rpm drives (like the WD Caviar 640 screamers). But ultimately the responsiveness of the lower access time made much more difference because most of the things I do with my computer don't involve 100s of megs of sequential reads where a high density high transfer rate drive excels.

 

it is the fastest hard drive ..... just read ktron's review. the superior bandwidth offered by the hm160hc more than makes up for its 2/3ms slower access times. it should trumph the 7k100 in most situations from xp startup, app. loading, to data transfer.
the reason your scsi drives are faster are because they have half the access times when compared to e.g. the wd6400aaks... where as the 7k100 has maybe 10-15% faster access times.

 

big mike, the hm160hc isnt the fastest mechanical drive made, its the fastest for the 2.5" IDE/ATA/PATA interface.

I know first hand that SCSI drives are insanely fast, but those just arent going to work in laptops.

K-TRON

 

He didn't say it's the fastest mechanical drive, he said it's the fastest 2.5" PATA drive!

 

I ordered a hm160hc, even if there's a 7200 competitor out there, it doesn't look like there is one that has close to that capacity, much thanks for the recommendation.

New question: since Windows 7 Beta is coming out, would it be possible to install it onto the new HDD while it's in an external enclosure, then pop it into my laptop and have it boot Windows 7? Am I asking for trouble? The laptop is from 2005, has an AMD ml-30 CPU, 2GB DDR 333, and overwhelmingly powerful ATI Xpress 200M IGP.

I figure this would allow me to manually transfer only the files I want from my old HDD, and get rid of much of the clutter.

 

The largest 7200rpm drive made for the laptop ide interface is 100Gb, so the 160gb of the samsung is 1.6x bigger
In order to install windows 7 on your external harddrive you would need a computer which was able to boot to USB devices.
But, if you were to take the harddrive out of the enclosure and into your laptop, it will not work.
When installing an operating system, somehow microsoft codes the installation so that it only works with that particular system.

Wouldnt it be easier to install windows 7 on your laptop first?

K-TRON

 

Can't install it on my laptop first, I have less than a gig of free space =(

 

Cant you install the Hm160hc new into your laptop, install windows 7, and than use your harddrive full of data in an external enclosure?

You can try running disccleanup, you can also clear the restore points, which should give you a few Gb of discspace back

K-TRON

 

How would I install Windows 7 on the new hard drive after inserting it into my laptop? Would I have to make room on my current HDD, pop it into the enclosure, and install it from there? What are the restore points that I could clear? I've never heard that term before.

 

assuming you have a dvd copy of windows 7 beta, you can install the operating system from a bootable dvd.

I only mentioned cleaning up restore points because it can free up a few GB of space. So that maybe you would have enough room to install wndows 7 on your current harddrive.

K-TRON

 

If I were to download the public beta of W7 when it is released tomorrow, would I be able to write it to a DVD, and install it onto the new HDD once it's in my laptop?