I think my laptop hard drive is going to break sometime soon and I really don’t want to be left without a working computer around now. I can’t buy a new computer at the moment so I was thinking I should just get a replacement hard drive.
This is a bit of an excuse to buy a bigger; faster; quieter (my Acer’s a noisy little chap); more efficient hard drive and to start with a clean Windows installation (This would let me avoid figuring out how to uninstall Ubuntu and Grub :rolleyes: ). I was thinking of getting a 2.5" 7200rpm one like this but I don’t know what the bottlenecks that would make a high speed drive pointless are. Heating is another thing I’m worried about.
My computer is an Acer Aspire 5720 with:
Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz
2GB DDR2 RAM
Current hard drive is: “Hitachi SATA 9.5mm 160GB 2.5in. 5400rpm HTS541616J9SA00”
Basically, I’d appreciate your advice on how to go about replacing the drive, what to buy, how not to break my computer (because I are noob :3 ) and what would be good value for money.
I wouldn’t spend money on upgrading your laptop. Just get a replacement, as the above poster said, and if you need more space or something just get an external 500gb
If your hdd dies (BOOTMGR IS MISSING) boot from an XP install CD, do a long ntfs format then see where it crashes then calculate (example it hangs at 44%: open calc and do [total hdd mb as it says on the format screen]x0.43 and then (reboot windows XP install CD) create partition put the custom size and it should work, after that you can format the other side of the HDD using windows make a small 1gb partition (don’t format, no drive letter) then make a 3rd partition 100% of remaining free space.
I know it sounds stupid but I’ve done it a few times it can last for up to a year.
The main thing is: if your hard drive is 2.5" and SATA, as long as you get another 2.5" SATA drive it’ll work. As for 5400 rpm vs 7200 rpm…it’s really up to you. A 7200rpm will be noticeably faster in any modern machine, but it would get hotter and use more power. As for sound, a 5400 rpm should in theory be quieter, but not necessarily. Go to newegg.com and read the reviews on some hard drives you are looking at to see what other people have had to say about them.
To replace the drive should be pretty easy to figure out. Just flip your laptop over and find the screw(s) for the hard drive and take them out (they’re probably marked by a little symbol that looks like three stacked discs). Then take the hard drive cover off, slide the hard drive to one side to unplug it and then lift it out. Some drives you slide completely out and then remove the casing, I’ve never worked on an Acer so I can’t say for sure how it’s in there, but it should be easy to figure out. Do the reverse to put the new drive in.
Then just put the Windows CD in and start up and it’ll guide you from there.
If there are files on your current hard drive you want to get off of it, I would recommend getting a hard drive adapter. Basically it makes your internal drive into an external drive.
You need to go into the BIOS and set the CD to be the first device to boot, put the hard drive second.
Do you have Windows installed already? If so, boot from the CD, enter the recovery console (press R when it asks you whether you want to install windows etc.) When you’re at the console, type:
fixmbr
and that will remove GRUB from your system.
If you don’t have Windows installed, GRUB will be overwritten as part of the installation.
And of hard disk, if your hard disk is not working fine get it replaced before it breaks.
:fffuuu: God dammit. My computer is Acer Aspire 5720Z, and I got 1.6 GHz processor. :’( Why didn’t they keep the letter Z and give me better configuration?
That’s just stupid, if it’s a HDD fault you should replace it. And if you’re strapped for cash it’s best to do a zero format of the drive and do a fresh install.
Use a Linux live CD to access your Windows installation (if you still can) to copy over any files you wish to keep to a backup location.
just pop in a windows cd, go to the recovery section, open command line . type in the drive letter of your dvd drive(mine was E), followed by a colon
then type cd boot
then bootsect /nt60 ALL /mbr.
just do all that after you’ve imged over your hard drive contents.
and you’re golden.
I no lol!
It’s hard to find information about my exact laptop because it’s not very common.
It cost £600 or £700 at the time, though, so I think I paid what it was worth.
Edit:
Hey, wat?
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