Samsung R20 replacement hard drive

Hi. I have a Samsung R20 which has been performing just fine (after a RAM upgrade) for a little over a year now. Suddenly I have the dreaded 'Operating System Not Found' message coming up and the C drive has vanished from my BIOS.

Having read a lot of threads here and elsewhere and following various pieces of advice I have come to the conclusion that the hard drive is dead and I need to replace it. After a previous laptop disaster I have been very good at keeping a backup so I am not going to lose any data which is good.

The question I need some help with is what sort of drive do I need to buy? I believe the current drive is a SATA one but that means absolutely nothing to me! I am quite happy to fit the new drive but I don't understand all the terminology. Can anyone help please?

 

all you need is a 2.5" sata hd. the fastest one's are the 320gb; 7k320, 7200.3, and the wd3200bekt. if storage is not important, and you have enough money, then maybe an ssd is the way to go.

 

SATA is the type of connector. Here's a selection of compatible HDDs (anything except the bottom three). How much capacity do you want?

See the 3rd photo of my R20 review. The HDD cover is on the bottom left. Remove two screws and then slide / lift the cover off to expose the HDD (photo 4 of the review).

Slide the HDD to the left while slightly lifting the left end using the black plastic tab. This will release the HDD from the connector. Then remove the 4 screws on the shiny metal plate to release the HDD.

Fix the new HDD onto the metal plate, slide it into place, put the cover back on and look for your system recovery disc.

Any more questions?

John

 

Thanks so much for both your responses - the murky waters of laptop hardware are now a little clearer for me I wish I had seen John's review prior to buying the Samsung - I think everything you said was spot on. Sadly they seem to have downgraded the hard drives since you did your testing as mine has a Fujitsu in it and I am guessing that is not top of anyone's buying list?

Given what you know of the R20 would you advise buying the 7200 or the 5400 version of the Western Digital drive? I am assuming that they are the ones you would recommend?

 

1. My review comes up second on Google for "Samsung R20 Review" so it's not too hard to find.

2. I've nothing against the Fujitsu HDDs. I'm using a Fujitsu MHZ2320BH at the moment. In my experience the Samsung and Fujitsu HDDs run a bit cooler than average. Some of the WD HDDs can run a bit hot. See this guide for more about choosing your HDD. 7200rpm slightly improves the performance.

John

 

In that case I probably did read your review!

Thanks again for the advice, very much appreciated.