8510p harddisk upgrade - compatibility issues likely to happen?

since i experienced some major problems last weekend on my 8510p gb967ea win xp pro sp3 notebook, i am forced to reinstall the os and i thought this would be a good chance to replace the 5400rpm 160gb drive (sata), especially in order to try out win7 on a big enough partition.

now i called hp and they told me that the maximum possbile would be a 250gb 5400rpm drive or a 200gb 7200rpm drive (which is set inside bios). i definitely would upgrade to a 7200 rpm (if not to a velociraptor or an ssd), but for just a 40gb gain this wouldnt really be worth it, as i will get the new 8540p notebook as soon as they are released with windows 7 and some satisfying hardware (dx11 gpu!), if they get this hardware, which i hope..

so does anyone know whether i should try a bigger drive (i would go for at least a 250gb 7200rpm drive, better 320gb or 500gb) and maybe check compatibility while in the store in order to give it back if it doesnt work, or leave the 160gb 5400rpm drive and wait for the new models?

or is there any way to extend the compatibility restricted inside bios (using the most recent ver. f.15/dec 08 now)?

thanks

 

They are lieing to you. There are no known limitations on what you can install into the 8510P. I presently have a 320GB 7200RPM drive.

The only thing you may lose, is the HP drive protect feature and even that you can purchase if you know the correct part number. That is the feature that enables the notebook to tell the hard drive to park the head if and when you drop the notebook so that no hard drive damage occurs from the read head slamming into the drive media. The drive I purchased DOES have that feature, but I had to dig into the parts list for the 8530P to find that Part #.

In case you haven t looked it is a SATA 2.5" HD.

Good Luck

 

Most probably HP support says maximum supported is xxx GB because it is the biggest option available from the HP itself and 100% certain to work. That way, if any problems arise, they can say it is unsupported configuration anyways

Bigger problem is if they tell you some future 750GB 10k rpm drive works and when you try it your computer fries itself. Basically they would be responsible and required to replace the computer (well, at least if warranty was still valid). That is why they do not admit anything other than original parts working.

I've been in same situation myself when I worked for Nokia support. I could not tell customer if some memory card worked in a phone, if it wasn't nokia branded original. Sometimes I did bend the rules and told customer just to try it when I knew it would work But there was actual issues with some other brands too: corrupting data, only part of the capacity showing etc.

 

thanks for the replies.

i know, the hp 3d drive guard feature is actually something i dont want to do without. there is this frame which fixes the drive and since the drive i want to buy has the same dimensions (and of course is 2.5'') this should work. i opened that frame in order to put my present drive (the original one) into an external case and everything works great.

i ordered a segate momentus 320gb 7200rpm 16mb cache drive (ST9320423AS) and today im allowed to check the drive while in the store before buying it. i actually was thinking about the velociraptor (10k rpm) but since i hope the 8540p will have satisfying hardware (gpu especially) i will replace the 8510p with the new model within the next year, so upgrading it now wouldnt really be smart.

what do you mean by "The drive I purchased DOES have that feature, but I had to dig into the parts list for the 8530P to find that Part #." - did you have to order that part after getting the new drive in order for the hp 3d drive guard to work? is it this frame with the one fix screw on top and 4 removable on the sides? if the drive i would buy has the 4 holes at the same place as the present one, this frame will certainly fit, so is this it?

thanks

 

solved.

put in the drive (hp 3d drive guard frame fit perfectly), ran win setup and it recognized it.

 

That frame is nothing more than a simple caddy.
The 3D guard is software/hardware driven
Has NOTHING to do with that frame

 

according to an illustration on hp's official hp 3d driveguard paper (theres a pdf i dont have the link for now, but its easy to find) the frame is the socket holding the drive inside the driveguard, like the magnesium frame on the elitebooks, which also is part of the driveguard. notebooks without the driveguard dont have that frame.