New Hard Drive for Laptop

[SardonicWhisper]

Hey everyone .

My laptop used to have a 250 GB hard drive, but then it randomly died a while ago. I sent it to a family friend technician who replaced the hard drive, but the problem is that he replaced it with one with only 100 GB. I used a lot of the 250 GB, so I was very upset to see this.

Now I have saved up enough money to buy a new hard drive with more space, and I want to attempt to install it myself. The only problem is that I have absolutely no clue what type of hard drive to buy. Also, would buying one with a lot of space impact the performance of the laptop at all? It already gets pretty hot sometime, so I don't want to completely kill it by overworking it.

My computer specs:

Time of this report: 11/25/2010, 00:19:47
Machine name: USER-LAPTOP
Operating System: Windows Vistaâ„¢ Home Basic (6.0, Build 6002) Service Pack 2 (6002.vistasp2_gdr.100608-0458)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: Inspiron 1525
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A16
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU T2390 @ 1.86GHz (2 CPUs), ~1.9GHz
Memory: 3062MB RAM
Page File: 1985MB used, 4365MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 7.00.6002.18107 32bit Unicode

Thank you to everyone who helps !

 

[Abstract Hero]

This should do fine. And space does not directly affect performance. I wouldn't worry about the temps.

Newegg.com - Western Digital Scorpio Black WD3200BEKT 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

 

[SardonicWhisper]

Thank you very much for the suggestion !

I was actually hoping to get one with 500 GB though, do you have any recommendations for that?

Also, I know that with a new hard drive I would have to re-install Windows. I have the re-installation CD that came with my laptop, would I be able to just use that? Or would I have to buy a whole new disk or product key?