How do I tell what type of hard drive I have in my Inspiron 1520? I am pretty sure it's IDE/ATA, but I am seeing info in my web research that says SATA. Not sure which to buy. Maybe this is a dumb question.
I finally have time to add space to my Inspiron 1720. It currently has a 160 GB hard drive and I was thinking of adding the following as a second hard drive:
[url]
I am aware that installing a secondary hard drive needs different equipment than installing a primary hard drive, so should this be everything I need to install the aforementioned hard drive?
I have a Inspiron M5040 (mid 2011) I ran a system test and was informed that there was a drive critical error with a hard drive ST95032 5AS SATA Disk Device FAILED... What does that mean, is it fixable and how much?
My hard drive failed on my Inspiron 14z laptop. I ordered an exact replacement and installed it. The computer was purchased 2 1/2 years ago, and I downloaded the operating system on 4 DVDs per Dell instructions. After installing the new hard drive, I am downloading  the 1st DVD. I come to a page that asks me to either click on "Restore my computer" or "Factory Recovery - Deletes data & resets all partitions". I click on Factory Recovery, hit next, and a new page comes up saying this application will recover your drive to the factory condition. "Do you confirm?"  I click "yes", hit next, and  I get yellow triangle with an explanation mark inside and it says "Your hard drive size is not supported for this process. Please use a hard drive at least GB in size. Â
I had to install a new hard drive onto Dell Inspiron 17R (5720, Mid 2012). Ordered new hard drive from Dell, and also Operating System reinstall DVD. Windows was loading, but computer shut down and did not restart. I pressed the power button to restart, but now get 'BOOT MGR is missing' error, and don't know what to do next. I chose 'Custom Installation' and selected the only hard drive that was visible when prompted. Computer will not restart with DVD or without DVD. What now? Windows 7-
I just got my new 1720 Inspiron, and I had a problem when trying to create an image of the C and D drive using the Ultimate Boot CD (BART), it would never see my hard disk partitions. I changed the BIOS setting for the On Board Devices from AHCI (default) to ATA for SATA operation. I also had to change the Flash Cache Module to be disabled, it was enabled in the Factory Default. The result of these changes was good, I was able to see my C and D drive when booting from my Ultimate Boot CD. What these changes do? Should I leave my BIOS at the new setting, or will I lose performance from my hard disk?
I purchased CT699854 4GB kit (2GBx2), 200-pin SODIMM from Crucial.com for my Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop. The machine already had 2GB in two 1GB chips for both slots.
When I installed the new chips, Windows Vista Home Premium refused to boot. BIOS recognized the new RAM without problems, but when Windows started to load I immediately got a 0x7b stop error. This is strange, because that usually coincides with an AHCI problem, but that's already turned on in the BIOS with Turbo Memory and works fine.
When I take ONE of those 2GB chips out, leaving an empty DIMM slot, it boots fine. When I use one new 2GB chip in conjunction with one of the old 1GB chips, it boots fine and Vista recognizes 3GB of RAM. But when I push it to 4GB, I get the 0x7b BSoD. I've used all combinations of new and old chips, and it appears the new chips aren't bad as far as I can tell.
i recently bought a vantex nexstar 3 external hard drive with the option of usb and e-sata. The problem i am having is with e-sata. The e-sata is the prefered method of exchanging information dur to its speed rather than usb.
I would like to know from the community in large if there is anyone who has experienced these problems or has connected an external to their m4400 laptop.
The external laptop has a seagate 7200 rpm FFS(free fall sensor) inside.
The problems: 1) When connecting the exHD to the laptop for the first time the HD spins (i can feel it) but then stops. Windows does not pick it up as well as Intel Matrix Storage manager. Only when i restart the laptop still with the exHD connect does windows pick it up as well as Intel Matrix Storage manager.
I did in both cases check to see if the exHD needs more power and it is sufficient.
2)Another issue is that i have windows reporting to me that an external hard drive has been connect to my system even though i havn't plugged it in .....
I was checking my hard drive with hdtune and saw something interesting...the program said that my hard drive is SATA I. Am I mistaken or is this for real? I have a CTO VGN-FW490J, got it in June 2009. The hard drive is a Fujitsu MHZ2320BJ. I did a quick google and the descriptions say it is SATA II, so I'm confused. Is it the motherboard that determines the SATA speeds or the hard drive? What's even more confusing is that in the official FW thread, someone said they installed a SSD and they're getting sequential reads at about 250mb/sec so that person definitely is in the SATA II range. I attached an image of the part that shows my hard drive info.
What concerns me is that the model I'm looking at (SR490PBB) states that the interface runs at SATA150 when pretty much everything is set to 3Gb/s. Does anyone know if the hard drive is SATA150
HP Pavilion Dv5-2077cl Entertainment NotebookProduct #: WQ799UA#ABAWindows 7 64-bit
I have been getting a random blue screen popping up every once and a while, that will "dump my physical memory" or something and then reboot itself after like 30 seconds. my hard drive was the reason for these constant errors. So I backed everything up, in preparation of a real crash. I am in the process of ordering a new hard drive from Newegg.com, and I would like to know if it is hard to replace a hard drive in a notebook, or if I should have Geek Squad do it for $50. Also, I dont think I have the Operating system disc that came with my computer, so how do I order that from HP and how much is it?And last but not least, Is there a post or video with instructions on how to install a hard drive and the operating system?
i just bought my hp hdx 16 yesterday the main reason i choosed hdx 16 over dv6 is the second hard drive option(as said in maintenance guide) now i opened the back and no place for my second hard drive if any1 knows where the connector
My Macbook is coming in tomorrow, but I've already got a new hard drive that I'm planning to install on it. How do I install the OS onto the new drive? Do I just assemble the new drive in and put the CD that comes with the Macbook in and it'll do everything for me?
I currently have a Dell Inspiron 1720 with a second hard disk I bought and fitted myself. If I get a Studio 17, will I be able to fit this hard disk into the second bay in there? As far as I'm aware the disk itself should be okay, but the caddy might be slightly different for that model - is that right? If so I'll just buy a new caddy or modify this one - otherwise I'll be £100 down for this hard disk!
i just bought my hp hdx 16 yesterday the main reason i choosed hdx 16 over dv6 is the second hard drive option(as said in the maintenance manual) now i opened the back and no place for my second hard drive
I have a Dell Latitude E6330 laptop and I recently replaced my hard drive as my old one had died--this was confirmed by the IT department at my school.  After replacing the hard drive on my laptop, I found that the Fn+F5 command to disable my touchpad/touch stick was unresponsive.  Upon further inspection, the touchpad button on my system tray was gone, and all touchpad related functions of my laptop were gone.  In place of my touchpad (and all windows, settings, options, etc. ... that concerned it) was this ps/2 compatible mouse, which I am not allowed to disable.
I am a gamer and a student, and having my touchpad/touch stick enabled hinders my ability to type or play games as easily as I am used to due to misclicks.  I used to be able to set my laptop to disable my touchpad (and other related hardware) automatically when I plugged in a USB mouse, and I would like to return to this setting if possible. How to do this without disabling the touchpad in the BIOS (as I do need to use my touchpad during lectures) ...
I have to swap out the current hard drive on my old Power Mac G5 because it's become unreadable. I've decided on the hard drive to replace it, but I have no idea how to go about installing the operating system. Moreover, my Power Mac G5 came with 10.3.5 Tiger, so is it safe to upgrade to Leopard even if I have older components?
I just got a new 640GB hard drive, and plan to install OS X, Windows XP, and Ubuntu on it. I would like some guides and recommendations on which operating system to stalled first, and what other preparation/softwares I need to get before installing.
got a inspiron 1545 recently with a SATA 320 gb HDD / 4gb ram with Windows Vista Home Basic. Like most of us I hate Vista. So I created a partition & installed XP.
Used a program "EasyBCD" to setup dual boot. I get the dual boot screen at startup. But only XP boots. After a little probing, came to know that there are only 2 options in the BIOS for SATA operations. AHCI & ATA. If I select ATA I can boot only to XP. If I select AHCI then I can boot only into Vista. Searched around but the solutions were a bit over my head. Really appreciate if anybody could come up with something in lay mans terms.
I have a system hp pavilion dv4 2101tu. My 320 GB internal hard drive got corrupted and i just bought 500GB new wd black internal hard drive. the problem is that when i am going to install window , i am facing problem . Just tell me that is there any prerequisite for installing a new hard drive into laptop. How to update bios information where it's shows i.e. internal hard disk size is 320 GB.Â
I have an HP Pavillion dv6000 notebook with a hard drive that is partitioned. Â One partition contains the recovery program, which will install Windows XP should I ever need it to do so. Â I have recently installed Windows 7 on the other partition, and believe it would make sense to install Windows 7 on the recovery partition, so that if it is ever needed, it would reinstall Windows 7 rather than Windows XP. Â How can I accomplish this?
I have Acer Aspire 5742G notebook and I'm having problems installing the Windows 7 OS on my new SSD hard drive (I bought the SSD because the original hard drive is failing and making blue screens all the time...)For the factory restore, I'm using restore discs. I burned the discs few years back when the laptop insisted me of doing it (by using eRecovery or something, 3 dvds total).  The computer tries to install the OS with the dvds (asks to insert a dvd and then press a key). The actual problem is that the installer is just going in loops, restarting and eventually freezing in the end.. Reboot -> Acer logo -> Windows is loading files... -> Starting windows -> Reboot -> etc.That kept going for more than a hour (on the first dvd!) and suddenly it just froze on the "starting windows" screen.. So I had to reboot and star over again.I can still use my old formatted HDD, should I make new set of recovery discs or use an USB drive?
I have a HP Envy 4 - 1046tx Ultrabook and the operating system is Windows 8.1 64-bit. While downgrading to Windows 7 64 bit I was unable to find the hard drives. In the installation screen it showed me "No drives were found. Click Load Driver to provide a mass storage driver for installation.".  I downloaded all the versions (from latest to the oldest) of Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers and tried installing them one by one but they didn't work and still the hard drives aren't visible. But if I use a Windows 8 installation disc and install the driver the hard drives are visible.  I need my computer to display the hard drives by default without requiring a SATA driver. How do I do that? My chipset manufacturer is Intel and the model is Ivy Bridge HM77.Â
