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    Replacing the hard drive in a Toshiba Satellite

    Discussion in 'Toshiba' started by Ichinenjuu, Jan 30, 2011.

  1. Ichinenjuu

    Ichinenjuu Notebook Deity

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    Has anyone done this before? Was it successful?

    First of all, I've never replaced a hard drive before in my life. But I'm interested in doing it. The Satellite M640 has everything I could want except a solid state drive. I really want one since I was able to test a computer with one and the difference in speed was amazing (plus the silence--I loved that). But I have no experience putting an SSD in.

    I'm worried about issues with drivers. How easy is it to install all the Toshiba drivers? If I were to replace the hard drive, would I be able to still use the touch-sensitive buttons and everything? Would I be able to get the preloaded Toshiba software back?
     
  2. alexUW

    alexUW Notebook Virtuoso

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    I too want to know the answer!

    AND, if I have the System Restore DVDs, could we just reinstall the OS that way?
     
  3. Scanner

    Scanner Notebook Deity

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    I replaced the small ssd drive that came with my lappy, and put in a crucial 128GB SSD. Its an easy process to remove the old hdd ,and replace it with a new SSD. In addtion to the ssd, I also had the cloning software, and cable. With this its a simple process to clone your old drive, once the cloning is done simply take out the old drive and put in the new one and your done. Everything is cloned from old to new including OS. These are the things I used. This one come with the cloning software and cable:

    Amazon.com: Crucial RealSSD C300 128 GB 2.5-Inch Hard Drive with Data Transfer Kit CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1CCA: Electronics



    Alex, for a number of reasons that I had drummed into my head (when I was changing my hdd) you cannot use the restore disks to format a new ssd drive.


    BEFORE DOING ANYTHING MAKE SURE YOUR OLD DRIVE IS FREE OF SPYWARE, AND VIRUS. YOU DON'T WANT TO INFECT NEW DRIVE.
     
  4. Ichinenjuu

    Ichinenjuu Notebook Deity

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    So that's it? Everything worked fine? All the drivers copied successfully?

    I never even knew you could do that. I guess because all the people I talked to who replaced hard drives wanted to do a clean install of Windows, but that's not what I want. I just wanted to copy exactly what was on the old drive onto the new one and I guess you can do that...hmm...
     
  5. Scanner

    Scanner Notebook Deity

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    That's it. Once cloning is done its over. The whole clean install of the OS, and all the drivers just takes to long. If I remember correctly the entire process took under an hour.