Being as though the forum is quiet at the mo, i thought i would ask about upgrading the HD on my laptop.
It is only 6GB and xp pro hogs a lot of that so i am thinking of getting something slightly bigger.
My question is: Can i buy any old HD (the same dimensions) and install that or do i have to pay the extortionate prices quoted by the manufacturer?.
Also, is it worth considering buying second hand?.

My laptop ran out of storage space, I bough an external Freecom HDD (120Gig) from Dabs for £75

Go HERE (http://www.dabs.co.uk) for bargains galore.

120 GIG!!!!!. I was thinking 20 GIG max!
I only really use it for surfing the net but it would be nice to know i have a little memory in reserve.
I can see how an extra 120GB for £75 is a bargain but i only paid £250 for the laptop in the first place. Although saying that, you have opened my mind to the external HD idea.

I know 120Gig is a lot but I have 30+ gig of music and Ive also put all my software and development stuff on it so I can take my work around with me and use it on other PC's etc :bigsmile:

I managed to sway 4 others into buying one.. Keep an eye out on the website for deals, they do externals from 20Gig upwards.

DeeJ :thumbsup:

Will do Deejay!, although i was hoping for an internal upgrade.

It should be easy to replace the internal drive but you will need to check to see what the largest capacity drive it can take will be. Should be ok with a 20gb drive, scan Ebay.. The Majority of laptops have easy access to the drive but not all. What make and model is it?

it'll almost certainly be a laptop form factor drive, ie 2.5" not 3.5". Laptop drives are quite a bit more expensive, but you should be able to upgrade it with a generic 2.5" one from dabs. I wouldn't recommend getting a hard drive through the post from ebay...
i was going to check dabs and get a price for you, but the site is being slow.

www.microdirect.co.uk

Hitatchi 20Gb drive £48.16
Hitatchi 30Gb drive £50.70

similar sort of prices at www.scan.co.uk too.

wow, prices have dropped significantly since i upgraded mine 18 months ago.

Thanks guys! The laptop is a Gateway solo 9300, P3 600mhz

Originally posted by Cyclone
wow, prices have dropped significantly since i upgraded mine 18 months ago.

It's now quite resonable to get a laptop drive and a small USB2 case for it. You can then carry 40Gb in your pocket for under £60. Seeing as how 1Gb flash memory drives are much more than that it's pretty good value, albeit more fragile!

Just a thought on the external drive issue... if the laptop doesn't have firewire or USB2 then it's going to be a bit of a haul getting significant throughput on the data transfer side of things...

Originally posted by Martin_s
Just a thought on the external drive issue... if the laptop doesn't have firewire or USB2 then it's going to be a bit of a haul getting significant throughput on the data transfer side of things...

Fortunatly i have firewire and 2x usb ports

Originally posted by vidster
Fortunatly i have firewire and 2x usb ports
LOL.. good re: the firewire...

However I mean't USB standard #2... not 2 ports :P

version 1 is a lot slower than version 2 :)

Yeah! I did'nt write my last post too clear. What i wanted to say is that i have 2 usb ports and i 'think' they are usb2 (How can you tell?). :)