Hitachi 7200 60 gig HDD installed.

So I finally got the drive (150$ online from Mwave.com) and an enclosure for the old 4200 drive and everything went fairly well.
Installing the new hard drive was simple enough, the scary part is when you have to slide the old drive out and it is in there tight. Finally loosened it up (gently rocking) and then got it out, and slid the other one in. It is hard to be sure the new drive is seated but all I can say is gently rock it a little as you are exerting gentle pressure. I could still see the pins after a fair amount of force, so I held a screwdriver against the body and shoved it more and it finally seated tight and the pins became invisible. I dont recommend this however as the screwdriver may slip. I forgot to say I removed the power and battery. Anyway it all went back together well and I started it up, the computer did a little waiting number after the bios and a search line or something (the dos clock turning around)and then it said insert bootable device in designated drive. I had already designated the cdrom as the 1st boot, so I put in the restore disks and was amazed that the whole restore process took about 12 minutes (all three disks). The palm rest got fairly warm during the windows install but it feels relatively cool now.
I installed the old drive into a new exterior enclosure (12$ at Mwave.com) and had some trouble with it until I realized it wasnt seated all the way (the computer woudnt read it and so I took it apart again). Hooked it up again and bubulip it installed itself and showed up in My computer. The operating system is still on it, I will leave it there until I know everything is good.
Everything is working great. I am going to run the hdtune.com utiity and compare with the readings I got with the old 4200 HDD.

 

Well done. As you found the expereince isn't really that hard, it's just a little bit of a pain to re-install everything.

Editor in Chief http://www.bargainPDA.com and http://www.SPOTstop.com

 

Tell us how fast is really feels now, compared to the 4200rpm drive.

 

Well done nowhereatoll!!

I'm going to follow suit as soon as i have some cash to spend. When i do mine, i'm going to test out the company Averatec advertises...MyFirstBackup. See if what they offer is truly worthwhile...or just a gimmicky application.

 

Ran HDTUNE (www.hdtune.com)
Here was the results (two readings) with the 4200 drive in the box:

4200 benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 13.1 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 28.9 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 21.8 MB/sec
Access Time : 17.8 ms
Burst Rate : 83.3 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 1.6%


Transfer Rate Minimum : 14.4 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 28.9
Transfer Rate Average : 21.8
Access Time : 17.8
Burst Rate : 83.5
CPU Usage : 1.6%



Here is two new readings with the 7200 disk installed:

HD Tune: HTS726060M9AT00 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 12.9 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 36.9 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 29.0 MB/sec
Access Time : 14.5 ms
Burst Rate : 83.3 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 1.6%

HD Tune: HTS726060M9AT00 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 18.2 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 36.9 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 29.1 MB/sec
Access Time : 14.6 ms
Burst Rate : 83.1 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 1.5%

 

Ok now for another question?

Did you notice any real difference in your applications or gaming? I'm very close to grabbing that drive as well along with an extra 512 ram so I wanted to see the real world differences you noticed? Any temp readings? I seem to be running a constant 115deg with a cooling pad and 123deg without. Heat being my biggest concern(second to batt life but I'm not holing my breath on that one)

 

By the way I thank all here for the encouragement.
Adidas; Yes I notice the differeence, it is about par with my desktop now. The 2 gig ram is on its way, I will be able to tell you more then.
I remember 110 degrees with the old hard drive, the new one starts out in the 80s and works up to 107, 110 if I put a load on it. Then I did some heavy moving and processing from the usb drives and it went up to about 127. It keeps around 110 in normal use tho. Funny, I put the old drive in an usb aluminum enclosure and it is cool to the touch. Someone said there is a big chip near the hard drive in the notebook, wonder if there is a transformer right there or something. The palmrest seams a little cooler than before the hard drive swap. The pcmcia card slot is right there, I would love to put a tiny fan inside that compartment. Maybe I will cut a piece of copper or aluminum and slide in to act as a heat sink. Just thinking out loud.

 

Nice idea with the fan in the pc card slot ..

A bit small tho, two type II slots would have been better