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    Replacing dead HDD in Dell Inspiron 1520--Advice?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by JP$, Mar 13, 2012.

  1. JP$

    JP$ Notebook Evangelist

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    My Dell Inspiron 1520 has been inexplicably dying over the past few weeks. I have neglected to do much about it because I generally use my Vaio and my wife has taken to using the iPad almost exclusively. But I finally stopped ignoring the Dell over the weekend and took a look at it. Unfortunately it looks like a complete loss. I tried to do a factory restore and I couldn't even do that (it gave me an error). Now I can't even get into the operating system at all--it says bootmgr is missing upon start up. Tried to boot from an old Windows XP CD, but when I try to install, it says it can't find a hard drive.

    I am assuming at this point that there may be a hardware issue with the HDD. So now my plan is to buy a replacement hard drive and swap it out, and then load Windows XP (I guess I'll have to hit up the Dell site and see if I can find the drivers for everything :(). My question concerns what I need to pay attention to when finding a replacement HDD. I was thinking about a 7200 rpm Seagate Momentus ( Amazon.com: Seagate Momentus 7200.4 320 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 16MB Cache 2.5 Inch Internal NB Hard Drive ST9320423AS-Bare Drive(Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging): Computers & Accessories, but I want to make sure it will be compatible. Do I have to worry about the BIOS? To be honest, I'm not even sure if the Inspiron is using an ATA or SATA hard drive (probably SATA, but I haven't opened it up yet to check).

    Any advice or feedback is greatly appreciated.
     
    JP$, Mar 13, 2012
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  2. ScottyBoy

    ScottyBoy Notebook Consultant

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    It's SATA based for the Dell Inspiron 1520 series - you might want to consider checking out Mihael Keehl's thread here at the NBR Forum, as it covers a lot of the hardware related topics you've listed.

    Dell Inspiron 1520: Viable After Market Upgrades

    BTW the only concern regarding the BIOS would be whether it's set for ATA compatibility for supporting Windows XP and legacy Windows OS'ses (i.e. W2K) or whether it's set-up for AHCI for supporting Vista/7/8 - I don't personally own a laptop of your model series but it should be easy enough to access the BIOS during POST to get that confirmed.

    Hope that helps you out a bit. :)
     
    ScottyBoy, Mar 13, 2012
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  3. JP$

    JP$ Notebook Evangelist

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    Very helpful! Thanks for the link and info.
     
    JP$, Mar 13, 2012
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  4. ScottyBoy

    ScottyBoy Notebook Consultant

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    No probs mate, glad to be of some help to you. :D
     
    ScottyBoy, Mar 13, 2012
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