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Advice for a Novice Replacing Laptop Hard Drive?

Posted by Cliff on from the save-money-by-doing-it-yourself dept.

frugalRepairs asks: "The hard disk in my Sharp PC-MV12W laptop recently died. It gave me warning and I had everything backed up. It was out of warranty and the repair folks want an arm and a leg to fix it. I would like to replace the hard drive myself but I've never done anything like this before. It seems to me that I would just extract the old hard drive, note the physical measurements, purchase new hard drive, and install it. However, I'm expecting Mr. Murphy to visit me as soon as I open the case and would like some advice from Slashdot experts. Do I need special tools? Does the BIOS have special needs? Are all 2.5" laptop drives created equal?"

3 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Uh? by ag0ny · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1. Open computer cover
    2. Verify that it's a 2.5" IDE drive
    3. Go to shop, buy new 2.5" drive
    4. Go back home, remove dead disk from computer
    5. Plug new drive when the old one was
    6. Close computer cover
    7. Install OS

    Honestly, there's nothing special to it. But there are two issues that you'll probably find:

    a) Laptops are very crowded inside their covers. Write down where everything belongs as you take it apart. Take photos if possible, to make sure that you put it together in the same way later.

    b) Laptop manufacturers don't like users messing with the hardware. Your laptop most likely has a cover underneath that you can remove by unscrewing a standard screw, and the hard disk is most likely inside it (that's the case with my Compaq Presario). However, it might happen that you have to use some special hexagonal key to reach the hard disk, as is the case on my wife's Sony laptop.

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  2. Re:Very simple by cbcbcb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The one in my Sony Vaio was 8.5mm. You can't buy 8.5mm drives any more - they are all 9.5mm and I had to bend the mounting bracket to fit it...

  3. OS by NewStarRising · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One thing to watch for is if you are putting the Original (Windows) installation back onto the Laptop. Most OEM Restore Disks check your hardware, not just type/brand/model, but EXACT component. They "Tatoo" the HDD so the Restore knows what to do.

    You may find that you are unable to Restore your OS back onto the new drive.

    Only solutions to this are to put a new OS on it (Retail Windows, *nix, other ...) or to phone tech-support ...

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