Laptop HD
 

My laptop only has a 30gb HD. I would like to upgrade to a 120gb HD. But I don't want to half to reinstall everything. So I would like to be able to just copy the files over to the new drive.

On a standard computer I would just install both drives and use disk wizard and mirror the drive. But I don't know a way to have them both installed at the same time. So I can't mirror the drives.

If anyone knows a way around this issue, please let me know.

Do you have a USB / FireWire External drive?

You'll need a USB/Firewire HD enclosure for the 2.5" drives. If you don't have one an aren't planning on getting one for that old 30 gigger, a cheaper route may be to get a couple 2.5" to 3.5" adapters that will allow you to plug those two drives into a desktop.

This is one reason why I keep my old Inspiron 8200 (aka Frankenstein) around, I can actually put two HDs in the unit. That and it Just Won't Die.

All of the laptop HD's that I've bought have been slow (maybe because I'm cheap.)

Can anyone recommend a good, reasonably fast HD for a Toshiba laptop (~2003, 2.6 GHz Celeraon 500MB memory)? I don't need more than 80 gigs or so.

ATA-6 or ATA-7? 44 pin or SATA?

After making sure that the new drive that you select is compatible with your laptop, get a cable like this one (Should be available for much cheaper), and use that to transfer your data to your new drive.

I replaced the 30gb Toshiba in my dell with an 80gb Hitachi (7200 rpm). It suffered a strange failure that I was barely able to recover my data from, and I replaced it with the same Hitachi model, but 5400rpm instead of 7200. I have had no problems with that drive, and it actually runs much quieter than the old unit.