I was wondering if it was easy to crack open and upgrade the CD-ROM drive to another hard drive instead. Since customizing a TT is hellaciously expensive and the hard drives they offer are slow and not big enough -I would rather supply my own parts than what they have in stock
I bought an FW configured with a 320gb 5400rpm hard drive, originally with a view to taking it out and putting in a faster one, 7200rpm or even an ssd. However, sony said this would void the warranty so I decided to just stick wit the 5400rpm option.
So my question is that if I bought a 7200rpm drive now, or an ssd when they are slightly cheaper, would I be able to slot that in,
but then if something went wrong with the laptop and it had to be returned, simply slip in the original 5400rpm hard drive so the sony guys wouldn't know the difference?? Or would they be able to tell I had changed the drive?
I own a VGN-Z37GD VAIO and I'm wondering what happens to the recovery drive once Vista is upgraded to Windows 7? Does the recovery drive also get updated or is it necessary to create a new one yourself?
I am looking at one of the 7200rpm 320gb drives from either Hitachi, Fijitsu, Seagate and Western Digital.
Sony says the systems are not designed to be upgraded (by the end user). I guess they want only overpriced tech to do it. I have already popped my system apart and put it back together so I know how to do it. I have been building and repairing my own PC since 1990 so I am not afraid to do this. I would hate to buy the drive and find out that the BIOS will not support it.
Has anyone had any issues with Hard Drive upgrades on the SZ 330p/b model?
I'd like to upgrade the hard drive on my Vaio, and I found a number of options here to purchase a new drive to make sure I get a compatible one. I'm leaning toward the 7200 rpm 320 gig model.
What I'm concerned about is doing the actual upgrade after cloning my current drive to the new one, as Sony says that hard drives are not user-upgradeable.
I've replaced a hard drive before on a Toshiba laptop, and on a TiVo, and many times on a desktop computer, so I have some confidence that I could probably do it if I had instructions, which I don't. I saw the instructions here about upgrading a different model -- is it probably sufficiently similar that a moderately geeky girl could manage this herself?
I just have a question regarding aftermarket upgrade of blue ray for Vaio Z series, did any one try upgrading with any aftermarket blue ray drive for Z series? If so what is the compatibility criteria and did anyone find one for Z series
I found a notebook blue ray rom for $79
[url]
but it is IDE interface I am not sure what interface is for Z series.
Sony VAIO VGN-NS140E/L. I've been wanting to replace my 250GB hard drive with a larger drive, but I can't find any instruction manuals/walkthroughs of how to disassemble it enough to make the swap.
I've read pages of other models, and followed it to the point of where I have removed the bottom screws and unhinged the keyboard, but now I can't figure out how to remove the plastic cover that is over the hard drive and other components (in other walkthroughs this part seems to be a seperate metal panel, not a plastic built-in part).
Disclaimer: I did do a cursory search for the question I want to ask, but there were like 480 pages that came up in my initial searches.
I have a Vaio VGN A270P that has VERY, VERY low miles on it. It is literally the car that the little old lady from Pasadena drove for like a grand total of maybe 10 hours.
I have ordered the requisite memory upgrade from the current 1GB to 2GB max from Crucial. Now I want to look into replacing the harddrive with something a little more beefy. In doing my due diligence, I found that this machine came with a max of 100GB hard drive. I see drives on the bay for reasonable prices that are as much as 360GB (?)
I am doing this in conjunction with a total dump of windows and swapping in Linux Mint for my OS. Basically I am wanting to try to extend the useful life and functionality of this machine by doing this.
My question is this....what would be you advice regarding the upgrading of the hard drive? Where to go to get it? What should I look for in purchasing the drive? What pit falls should I be on alert for? Do any of you have reservations about what I am proposing here?
I have a Sony Vaio VGN-FW290 with Vista Home Premium 64x that I’ve had for approximately one year. I would like to upgrade it by replacing the original 5400rpm HD with a 7200rpm HD and a fresh install of Windows 7 Home Premium 64x.
Here are the questions I have:
Is there a preferred hard drive that works well in this style of laptop? I’m considering a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 or WD Scorpio Black.
If I install the new hard drive, can I boot from the Windows 7 installation disk and go? Will the basic hardware function properly at this point; CD drive, internet connection for Windows installation, etc.? Is there anything else I need to be aware of?
According to Sony eSupport, the VGN-FW290 model is “Windows 7 upgradeable”. Does this mean all the Sony Windows 7 drivers are available to provide the full functionality of the computer with a fresh install? There’s only a handful of Windows 7 Home Premium 64x drivers, on the Sony website, compared to the Vista Home Premium 64x OS. Do I use a combination of Vista drivers along with Windows 7 drivers? For example, I have the ATI Radeon HD 3650 video adapter and a Blu-ray read/write drive, but don’t see a Windows 7 driver for them.
I have upgraded the HDD and RAM 2 months ago after a hardisk failure.
Current specs as follows: Intel Core2 CPU T7400@2.16GHz Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 GT 2x2G RAM 2x320G HDD
Optical Drive: Mata BD-MLT UJ-210S ATA Device In device manager it says the device is working properly. Current driver version is 6.0.6001.18000, which should be the latest (Ver1.06)
The laptop was purchased in June 2007. Broke Dec 2009 due to hardisk failure. Then I upgraded some hardwares (HDD & RAM), reinstalled Vista Home Premium (Burnt disk) then upgraded to Win7 (Retail disk).
Then 2 weeks ago, I left it on battery only, thought it would go into hybernation when the battery drains, however I had a nasty system loss, basically all I had was the Vaio logo and BIOS info, not even F8. So had to reinstall the system. Did pretty much the same thing as before, except I did the firmware upgrade of the optical drive, which I don't recall doing the last time. Then, I'm stuck with the Win7 upgrade.
I gained a lot of information from the 5315 CPU Upgrade Thread. I'd particularly like to thank BigOzone, Hoggie and Quilty997. There are many others but information from the above formed the basis of my upgrade.
Other information I've collected from other parts in the forum.
The specification of the laptop was as follows.
Acer Aspire 5315 Celeron 550 2.0Ghz (eek) 1gb of Ram Vista Home Basic (double eek) Atheros Wireless Card 80Gb Toshiba Hard Disk
The new Specification is.
Core2Duo T7500 2.2Ghz 800 Mhz Front Side Bus 4Mb Cache 3Gb of Crucial Ram Vista Home Basic (No Choice At the Minute) Intel 4965 AGN Wireless Card 200Gb Hitachi Hard Disk
The CPU Upgrade I won't actually cover, not necessary when there is a fantastic sticky at the top of this forum. The Upgrade took about 15 minutes, but the actual swap took about 5 minutes or so, I was very anal about cleaning the heatsink and applying AS5. I think the biggest scare was the door unerneath, quite tricky to get off and put back on without damaging the tabs.
My main focus is the hard drive swap, whilst maintaining all the eRecovery software. For this I use Acronis True Image Home, I am aware that the trial can be downloaded or users obtain by other means, can I just say BUY IT as it only cost me £17 from Amazon.co.uk and as usual it was cheaper in the US. The biggest reason for buying is that some features are not available in the trial. I also bought a Laptop SATA External Drive Holder and boy was I glad I did......................
With all the hand wringing folks have been doing about the lack of drivers for a clean install of Win7 I thought I'd jump in to the deep end of the pool with my FZ190 and investigate an alternative. My good friends Rajesh and Dr. Pratik have done clean installs of Win7 on FZ models, but I decided to take a different approach... the "dreaded" OS in place upgrade. Partly out of curiosity, I wanted to see if it would work, but mainly because I have a ton of software that would need to be reinstalled, if I did a clean install. That would mean days or weeks of inventorying every thing I have installed, digging up installation media and then installing all the stuff. I just don't have the spare time. So...
This past weekend I imaged my C: drive (all my data and I mean ALL my data is on D:, I am a fanatic about that). MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP OF YOUR C: DRIVE BEFORE YOU TRY AN UPGRADE! I ran the Windows 7 Update adviser and it said I had some issues:
Quote:
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT - NVIDIA Not compatible The driver installed for this device is not compatible with Windows 7....................
who opened I believe Z and connected a hard drive to dvd drive connector while leaving dvd drive in for cosmetic reasons. Can't find this thread. Where exactly can the hard drive go? Inside the tray?
I am afraid there will be too much vibration if I put regular HD there. For this reason I would rather put there SSD but is there a way to make this a primary OS drive? Seems like last bios allows to boot from optical drive.
Currently I have a 60gb 7200 drive and I'm constantly battling for disk space and I regularly have to move files off on to my desktop to reserve space. The last straw was just last week I wanted to install all of the Orange Box and well that's like half my hard drive. I had to remove my entire mp3 and photo collection and uninstall a ton of crap to find room for it.
Anyway, I'd like to get a bigger hard drive. 100+ gig minimum. I'd like to stay with a 7200 rpm drive but it seems from some threads around here that you can get virtually the same performance from the larger 5400 drives. If that's the case, I don't really care which speed it is.
Is there a certain formfactor for the drive I'm looking for? Certain brands? Anyone who's upgraded the harddrive in this system have any advice? Most of the threads I found regarding new harddrives are on the newer Dell systems; and mine is a few years old.
I suppose an external drive is always an option; but like another post here it'd have to be usb powered as I need it to be fully portable and carrying another power cord around just isn't gonna work. I've never had any experience with external drives however; though I imagine they work identical to an internal for all normal purposes. How about speed though? Are they feasable to run games off of or can you pretty much only use them for file storage?
It seems ideally I'd minimum want to upgrade my internal drive with 100+gig drive and then possibly also get an external drive later. So knowing that what should I be looking for for an internal drive upgrade. Can anyone give me any models or links to good ones or where I should be looking?
I was reading the switchers' guide and saw that upgrading the HD in my new (Apple refurb store, actually) 15" LED MBP 2.4ghz 8600gt model will void the warranty, and an Apple store tech must do it.
I'm cheap, illustrated well by me buying a refurb MBP for $1350 after waiting for a couple years to pounce on one. Being cheap, I was thinking of purchasing a 320gb HD for the MBP for like $65 off Newegg, and having the Apple store pop it in for me so my 1-year warranty will remain intact.
Does the Apple store charge for this service if they are installing an HD I am bringing in? If I purchase an upgrade HD from the Apple store themselves, will they provide the service free or at a discount?
I'm buying a refurb M4400 that comes with a DVD-ROM drive. I'd like to upgrade it to a DVD-RW.
Dell sells an IDE and a SATA drive. I'm not sure which one I should be getting. I'm hoping M4400 owners here might be able to give me more info - do all M4400s have IDE drives, all have SATA, or is it a mix? Can I safely order one or the other, or will I have to wait and see what my system has before I can order?
I'm new here, so firstly HELLO! ;-) I'm typical a SONY laptop person, but since their latest model has a seriously bad fault that would have me sending it back to them every 6 months to be repaired, and they refused to swap it for a laptop without that design, I decided to return to Dell.
So far, I'm pretty happy with my XPS 1330, other than my stupid decision to upgrade the operating system to Vista Ultimate. I ended up losing all required drivers and now it likes to crash now and then (I think it's because of the display drivers). However, that's another story!!
The purpose of THIS post is to find out from you all whether the XPS 1330 can take a 750 gig sata drive. I'm thinking of getting this drive and installing Windows 7 onto it, and starting over.
Acer 5315-201G08Mi Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 550 @ 2.00GHz (Socket P) TOSHIBA MK8046GSX Intel GL960 chipset IO chip being 82801HBM (ICH8-M). 2G DDR2 533 ram Vista Home Basic MB - ICL50
I've noticed that the supplied Toshiba SATA II drive is running in SATA I mode and not SATA II even though the controller chip supports SATA II.
Perhaps the BIOS has disabled SATA II?
In addition, I'm keen to upgrade the CPU to a T7300, I assume if I follow the directions on this site, everything should work fine? Any known problems with this model?