[SOLVED]Laptop hard drive died

dreadlorde · Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 2:10 pm Post subject: [SOLVED]Laptop hard drive died

The hard drive in my laptop died. I can't seem to find any reputable places to buy the same one, so would any 2.5" wide, 9.5mm high, hard drive fit in the laptop?
_________________
Ludwig von Mises Institute

Quote:

I am not to be a shepherd, I am not to be a grave-digger. No longer will I speak to the people; for the last time I have spoken to the dead.

DONAHUE · Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 3:08 pm Post subject:

sata or pata matters a lot. Matching size plus interface should be all you need to get interchangeability.

dreadlorde · Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 4:00 pm Post subject:

According to the Toshiba website, it's ATA-5, which from what I read on wikipedia is PATA. Also, wikipedia says this about ATA-6 drive

DONAHUE · Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 4:17 pm Post subject:

just as it says if the controller is ata5 40gb and you install a 60gb ata6 20 gb will not be used.
I'd go ahead and open the laptop and read the nameplate on the drive itself.
http://www.fonerbooks.com/laptop_1.htm is one of a bunch of useful sites that google will find for laptop hard drive replacement. Don't forget to remove battery and charger first. Getting at hard drive is usually easy, particularly compared to cd drive.

Mad Merlin · Veteran Joined: 09 May 2005 Posts: 1155

Was the drive /dev/hda (probably PATA) or /dev/sda (probably SATA)? It's easier to check the type on the drive itself though. Aside from that, any 2.5" drive of the correct interface should work for you. Your BIOS will need to support drives larger than ~127G if you put a drive that large in there (if you want to use the space beyond that limit).
_________________
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!

dreadlorde · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 2:01 pm Post subject:

Letharion · Veteran Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 1344 Location: Sweden

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 4:57 pm Post subject:

dreadlorde,

Check the interface and physical size. Thats all that matters.

ATAx is backwards compatible with ATXy, the lowest common level supported by both the drive and controller will be used. Drive size is not part of the ATA spec, so you be able to use all of a larger drive.

With a larger drive, there is a couple of minor gotchas.
1) Older BIOSes will sometimes not POST with a drive bigger that they understand fitted. There is a magic number like that at 33Gb.
2) If they do POST, they may only be able to read up to (33G, or 137G), in which case you must ensure that all the files needed to boot are in a region that can be read by the BIOS. Thats why the small /boot at the front of the drive was created.

BIOSes were fixed for the 33Gb limit about 10 years ago, so its not likely you will be affected.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

dreadlorde · Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 3:39 pm Post subject:

I think I have it now, thanks everyone.
_________________
Ludwig von Mises Institute

Quote:

I am not to be a shepherd, I am not to be a grave-digger. No longer will I speak to the people; for the last time I have spoken to the dead.