New hard drive for Dell Inspiron Mini 1011

[PeteB]

Hi

This is my first post and I have only limited knowledge so any advice on manners,etc welcomed. Bought a Dell netbook about 18 months ago and managed to catch the power lead with my leg causing the machine to drop to the floor. The case remained intact but the hard drive is damaged and it won't boot. Running Windows XP and managed to run R from Recovery Console using USB optical drive. Chkdsk /r showed irrecoverable errors so have decided to buy new hard drive. Dell replacement is more than twice the price of say Hitachi 5400 2.5" 160Gig and so I'm tempted to buy the latter. Can anybody tell me if this is likely to fit the Dell caddy and if I just swap the drives over will I be able to re-install XP from USB optical drive without doing anything else? Grateful for any thoughts.

 

[MindoverMaster]

It just uses a 2.5" drive. Getting to the HDD is a bit hard, IIRC.

I don't remember how long Dell warranty is, but you can ask them for a RMA form.

 

[PeteB]

Thanks for replying. I know how to get to the hard drive which is by undoing 3 screws on the back and flipping out the keyboard more or less. I just want to know that if I buy the drive I have a good chance of setting it up. Dell have confirmed it's out of warranty and have quoted me about half the purchase price to replace a formatted drive and I'm trying to avoid this cost if possible.

 

[carnageX]

Yes you should be ok doing that. As long as the original drive is a 2.5" and you're replacing it with the same size drive (dimensions, not capacity...it can be whatever capacity you want), it should be fine.

You should be alright using the USB optical drive as well, as that's what I've done before.

 

[MindoverMaster]

You should be alright using the USB optical drive as well, as that's what I've done before.

Me as well. I put many OS's on my ASUS Eee. Mostly Linux distros.

 

[PeteB]

Thanks to all respondents. I'm putting my order in now. Have a slight mistrust of icons in messages but I'm delighted. Thanks again.

 

[carnageX]

No problem, glad to help.

What do you mean by a "slight mistrust of icons in messages" ? lol

 

[Fat.Clown]

I actually have the its brother the 1010. and I have it open currently! (i am wiping the drive because I had just sold it last night.)
what a coincidence lol
and I can assure you that any 2.5" SATA hard drive works