how to re-install a harddrive ??

[illnastyimpreza]

My cousin gave me his old Dell Latitude D600, with the Pentium M 1.8 and 1024mb of ram. But it has no harddrive !

How would I go about replacing it ? Can I buy any Laptop harddrive? how would I go about reinstalling windows ?? I might possibly have an old dell windows xp CD laying around from another computer... how hard is this going to be ?

 

[KSoD]

Hello,

Yes jsut buy a laptop specific hard drive then boot with a Windows CD in the tray. Make sure you have a serial for it as well. Dont want to pirate it.

To install could be difficult depending on where the hard drive is located in that specific laptop. Some of the older ones i worked on you had to remove the display and keyboard in order to get to the hard drive area. Some are not like that. Each laptop is different.

Cheers,
Mak

 

[KurrentEweser]

Does the laptop still have the hard drive caddy with it? You won't be able to install the drive without it.

Documentation

 

[EricB]

2 screws on the bottom for the d600

 

[Badfinger]

Laptop hard drives are pretty std fare, should be one screw to get to the hard drive bay and it's just a matter of sliding one in and the putting the cover/screw back on.

For a look at various laptop drives:
Newegg.com - Notebook Hard Drives, Laptop Hard Drives, Notebook Internal Hard Drive, Laptop External Hard Drive
$60 for an 80gig might suit you?

 

[illnastyimpreza]

awesome thanks guys. This sounds WAY easier than I suspected !

I know for destops there is SATA and IDE ... does this matter for my laptop ?? or are they all SATA ?

Also, just how much am I going to notice the speed increase from 5400 PRM to 7400 RPM ??

 

[KurrentEweser]

The Dell Latitude D600 will only take the older IDE drives. A 7200 rpm drive would overkill for this model.

 

[illnastyimpreza]

for interfaces I see : ATA-6 , SATA 1.5 GB , and SATA 3GB I'm assuming mine uses the ATA-6 ?

can someone recomend a decent one for less than $75 ??

 

[KurrentEweser]

for interfaces I see : ATA-6 , SATA 1.5 GB , and SATA 3GB I'm assuming mine uses the ATA-6 ?

can someone recomend a decent one for less than $75 ??

Here's a very nice one assuming the bios will handle a 160gb drive.

Newegg.com - HITACHI Travelstar 5K160 HTS541616J9AT00 (0A28419) 160GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive - Laptop Hard Drives

If not this one will do.

Newegg.com - HITACHI Travelstar 5K160 HTS541612J9AT00 (0A28418) 120GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive - Laptop Hard Drives

 

[illnastyimpreza]

Here's a very nice one assuming the bios will handle a 160gb drive.

Newegg.com - HITACHI Travelstar 5K160 HTS541616J9AT00 (0A28419) 160GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive - Laptop Hard Drives

If not this one will do.

Newegg.com - HITACHI Travelstar 5K160 HTS541612J9AT00 (0A28418) 120GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive - Laptop Hard Drives

how do I check if my Bios can handle it ?