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    Harddrive Upgrade Vaio SZ: What's The largest drive you can put in it?

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by narci, Jul 21, 2008.

  1. narci

    narci Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi all,

    I did a search but came up with nothing.

    I have a Vaio SZ340P and was wondering what is the largest size drive the Bios will recognize. I plan to put in a 320GB drive but i'm not sure if the bios will recognize it all.

    Thanks in advance.
     
    narci, Jul 21, 2008
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  2. xrules

    xrules Notebook Consultant

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    I guess it should be possible .. but the XP might not recognize the full 320 gb unless you install a patch for it... I think it sees a max partion of 128 GB or so by default...
     
    xrules, Jul 21, 2008
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  3. ascariss

    ascariss Notebook Deity

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    If you install xp with sp1 then the full size of the harddrive will show up and then you can allocate that extra space to a new partition or whatever.
     
    ascariss, Jul 21, 2008
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  4. xrules

    xrules Notebook Consultant

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    yes, thats what I did, I just wanted to inform that while installation the whole disk might not show up..
     
    xrules, Jul 21, 2008
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  5. teatime0315

    teatime0315 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I actually have a 320gb hdd in my SZ691 right now. I installed the hard drive and it didn't give me any problems.
     
    teatime0315, Jul 21, 2008
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  6. narci

    narci Notebook Enthusiast

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    Just got a samsung spinpoint m 320gb drive. I'll give her a spin tonight and report back.

    I just need to find a way to partition it before using the recovery disks or does the recovery disks have an option to partition the drives?
     
    narci, Jul 21, 2008
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  7. narci

    narci Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ok, bios recognizes the full 320. Now to format.
     
    narci, Jul 21, 2008
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  8. scottyinco

    scottyinco Notebook Evangelist

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    i put a samsung spinpoint m6 500gb in a TZ, so i'd bet the SZ could handle it as well.
     
    scottyinco, Jul 21, 2008
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  9. narci

    narci Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ok..this kind of stinks.

    I partitioned the drive..but if you use the recovery discs and recreate the hidden partition, it'll wipe out the partition you created and it'll be 1 single partition again.

    Had to use Acronis Disk Manager to recreate the partition.
     
    narci, Jul 22, 2008
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  10. jdbrookes

    jdbrookes Notebook Evangelist

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    Just recently installed a WD Scorpio Black Edition 320GB 7200RPM( WD3200BEKT) in my SZ3VP and it works very well. Noticeably faster than my old Toshiba 120GB 5400RPM (Vista Experience Index rating for the disc went from 4.3 to 5.7). Shows up as a single partition also, which suits me fine. Transferred the single partition from the old drive using Shadowprotect Desktop which allowed me to leave out the hidden partition and the D partition.

    Have noticed a tiny bit more vibration during heavy disc use, for example whilst downloading a torrent, but the impact on overall system temperature and noise is similar to the previous drive. Happy out really; a simple and cheap upgrade that makes a real impact.
     
    jdbrookes, Nov 11, 2008
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