HArd drives in the Dv6t

Guys the only available models of the HP dv6t in my country are the 6095 and 6096 and both have the 5400rpm hard disks. Ordering online is not an option, unfortunately.

I would appreciate if the owners share their experience on the following:

1- Once i get the laptop am planning to burn the recovery image on dvds and replace the 5400rpm HDD with a 7200rpm HDD. Would a clean install of windows still work on the new HDD from the recovery disks? or is this copy of windows along with the driver definitions linked to the serial number of the stock HDD?

2- Are the stock HDDs SATA 2 (3.0Gb/s) or SATA I (1.5 Gb/s) ?

many thanks

 

1. I don't think so. I think you can very well use the recovery disks on the new HDD. The recovery disks are linked to the model of the notebook. Or else, you can try cloning the stock HDD to the new HDD.

2. The stock HDD I got is Hitachi 500GB 5400rpm (SATA 3Gb/s).

 

Thanks.

I saw you play games on your dv6t, thanks for your benchmarks report.

i recommend you replace that Hitachi with a 7200rpm HDD (Seagate) for better loading times while gaming.

SATA 3Gb/s means SATA 2. I wonder if there are any notebook HDDs that go up to 6 Gb/s which is the maximum rate supported by the Intel HM67 chipset.

 

Thanks, I have already ordered a Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid 500GB which I will hopefully be getting soon to replace the slower stock drive.

Yes, there are notebook HDDs with 6Gb/s support available from Seagate as Enterprise Drive in 2.5in form factor but I checked its height is 15mm whereas our dv6 only supports upto 12.7mm. So, it can not be used. But upcoming SSD are also going to support 6Gb/s (some may have already arrived in market, I am not sure) which will fit in dv6.

 

Sweet.

So how are you planning to install windows on the new drive? from the recovery dvds?or will you use your own copy of windows?

 

I am not quite sure about it. Actually, I am thinking over the following options :

1) Clone the Stock HDD to the New HDD.
2) Use the Recovery DVD for minimal system recovery (which will install windows, drivers and only required software).
3) Clean Install Windows.

 

For the record, this is the 7200rpm SATA II (3.0Gb/s) HDD used in some of the Dv6T models: SAMSUNG HM640JJ

Interface
SATA 3.0Gb/s

Capacity
640GB

Cache
16MB

Average Latency
4.13ms

RPM
7200 RPM

 

Can you please elaborate on how you are planning to do the cloning? Will yo plug in the new HDD in a USB case as an external drive and start the cloning using some software?

And does the Dv6 6000 come with recovery dvd or do you have to burn it yourself? i don't see the latter option is feasible as the size of the recovery partition is around 13GB!

Thanks

 

I'd suggest putting ur recovery on a usb(I put mine on a 16gb USB drive). Should be on your recovery partition(just run it, it will give the option to copy ur recovery to either 2 DL DVDs or a USB etc)

Also if u have the coin, the new SSD's by Crucial, Vertex etc all use SATA3 which ur mobo supports. A standard HDD is fairly pointless on SATA3 at this stage.

 

Yes, I was kinda thinking the same of pluging the new HDD in a USB case and start cloning. Maybe, I could also use the Recovery DVDs to do a system recovery on the new HDD.

No, it doesn't come with recovery DVDs, you will have to burn it yourself. You will need either 3 DVDs or 2 DVD-DLs or a 16 GB flash drive.

 

Thanks guys. I have a 500GB Western Digital external drive (portable), can i use that as the 16GB flash drive to clone the recovery partition?

Or does it really have to be a Flash technology storage?