Upgrade HDD on Asus M6000

I have an old M6000 with a 60G HDD. Their website says that 80G is the maximum for this laptop. I am using Windows XP as the OS.

1. Is this some kind of BIOS restriction because Windows can handle bigger drives
2. If 80G is the maximum the BIOS can handle, is it possible to have a 160G drive with two partitions C: and D:?
3. Anyone using an M6000 who has overcome this issue?

All help or guidance appreciated.

 

Welcome to notebookreview,

Download HDTUNE
Go into the "info" tab
Than look for the line which mentioned "48 bit addressing"
If the box is checked than your system does not have an LBA limitation of 137GB.
If the box is unchecked, your system is limited to a maximum of 137GB. The only way to get around this is to setup multiple partitions on the drive.

I am not familiar with the ASUS M6000. Does it use PATA or SATA harddrives?
If you do not know, hdtune tells you the model number of your drive in the pull down menu. State the model number here, and we can tell you which interface it uses.

K-TRON

 

Thanks K-Tron. I have run HDTUNE as suggested.

I have an Hitachi IC25N060ATMR04-0(60GB) ATA/ATAPI-0 UDMA Mode 5

The 48 bit addressing IS ticked. So is that good news and would I be able to fit a Western Digital 320GB 2.5" 5400rpm IDE Ultra Quiet Notebook Hard Drive do you think?

 

Upgrading from a 60gb 4200rpm drive to a high density 5400rpm drive will definitely show a huge jump in performance.
Your system should have no problem seeing a drive over 137GB.

I recommend looking at the
Samsung HM160HC (160gb 5400rpm - single platter)
or the Western Digital WD2500BEVE (250gb 5400rpm - 125gb per platter)
or the Western Digital WD3200BEVE (320gb 5400rpm - 160gb per platter)

Any of these three drives will show a day to night difference in terms of loading programs, windows, etc.

The WD3200BEVE should be near identical in performance to the HM160HC.
Deciding between the two comes purely down to price and whether you need the extra capacity or not.
I cant guarantee your system will read all 320gb, but it should see all 160gb of the HM160HC without a problem.

Check out my review of the HM160HC before purchasing the drive:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=264209

If you buy the WD3200BEVE, please post a hdtune benchmark

K-TRON

 

Thanks again, K-Tron

I will post back and let you know what transpires but it will take at least a week. I live fairly remote and have to use mail-order.

 

I said I would come back.

In the end I went for a Samsung 160G and an extra 1G of RAM. This was slightly less than the price of the 320gig HDD on its own.

Everthing works fine: the BIOS reports 160G and Windows shows 159G of HDD space available

 

That is great to hear,
did you notice a large increase in system responsiveness?

K-TRON