Replacing Hard drive in laptop

[Ean Austral]

Gday All,

OK - I am a novice at this so be gentle. I need to replace my home laptop as my work one is no longer allowed to be taken home. ( long story )

So the youngest daughter had a laptop she left behind which has a failing hard drive and being the sort of person who hates to throw stuff away I am wondering if its as simple as buying another hard drive. I see plenty for sale on the net. I have no issues with the replacing part as I have changed them before , but I am guessing I will need to buy programs for it to operate. Is this correct ???

So do I need to buy the same hard drive - as I am assuming hers would be out of date .

Is there anything else I need to know ? The other option is to buy a new laptop , but for my use her old one would be perfect and I struggle to see why I should throw away something that is still in good order.

Thanks and Cheers Ean

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Buy a SSD,, they are a straight swap for a laptop drive,, and mucho faster!!
while you have it open ,, see how many ram slots it has,, and how much it will take,, and spend up big!
little tiny spring clips on the sides of the ram,, easy once you see how[thumbsupbig]

as to programs,, well yes I suppose.
Win 10 can be loaded and will run nearly indefinatly without paying for it,,,

[Disco-tastic]

I second an SSD. And extra ram will always be helpful - I would put 4GB at least in, and 2GB laptop sticks are pretty cheap. But if you have a 32bit CPU or operating system there's no point going more than 4GB.

Regarding software, check the laptop for any windows stickers. You can download and install the same version of windows using that key. Otherwise try and find a copy of win7. From what I hear its worth paying for over win 10!

[Tins]

Everyone is assuming the laptop is a windows machine. What if it's a Mac? Well, the answers are pretty much the same. Except, there is a great website called IfixIt that has great tutes for fixing and upgrading Macs.

Oh, and MacOs is free, and doesn't need a license key. It's been that way for years.

[Ean Austral]

Its a windows machine, a Tobshiba Satelitte something or another.

My work laptop is very similar but think its the next model. Both have windows 7 and I certainly cant complain about it.

I am not a gamer or watch movie's and stuff like that , I use it to access the internet for Aulro and a few other site's and for google searches etc , so very basic stuff.

Thanks for the advice.

Cheers Ean

PS it does have the product code sticker still on the machine so if windows 7 can be down loaded then I may be ok

[Disco-tastic]

Download Win7 here (https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows7)

The sticker may say which version you have. If not just try them all until it lets you download the software. My guess is basic or home premium.

[AK83]

I wouldn't bother with the additional expense of an SSD on an old laptop.
Yes, they are faster, but they can only be as fast as the slowest device in the entire system!
That is, the SSD may transfer data at say 100Mb/s, but if the top speed of the SATA pipeline(on the motherboard in the laptop) is only 30Mb/s, then the speed of the SSD is just wasted.

SSDs are still good tho as they're not mechanical and hence not as susceptible to knocks and bumps whilst running.
So if there's a chance that you may fumble whilst using the lappie .. then SSD will make sense.

250 Gb SSD = about $100 + 1Tb(1000Gb) HDD can be had for about $85 or less. more = better quality, more durable(or larger again!)

At the moment, I see that the Seagate 1Tb firecuda SSHD is about the best value for money drive for an old latop. It'll probably outperform most old laptops drive line data throughputs(ie. it'll be faster than the laptops motherboard, has good capacity(1tb, but has an SSD section built into it too .. hence the SSHD in the name .. an SSD+HDD combo. that is the $85 option near the top end of the cheap range.
My personal preference for 2.5" HDDs has been Western Digital black drives. About $90 for a 1Tb model. Fast and reliable(I've had 3 different Seagates totally fail in about 3 years with not really a lot of usage). Other than the one that I got my son, which he banged massively hard in frustration once .. never had a WD drive fail on me. I have 4 in my current desktop from what seems like a million years ago now, all used heavily too.. and 4 Reds in my NAS also heavily used as a multimedia server.

Make sure that if you do the drive update, you go to the Toshiba website and download all the drivers and updated bits of software for your specific model.
Things like ethernet drivers, video drivers, wifi .. etc, etc.
Windows install will load generic drivers for your machine, but usually for optimal performance the Toshiba updates and drivers will work better. Not always, but usually!

Pop them into a USB thumbdrive or CD or whatever and have them ready to install .. and just use Windows driver update system's via Device Manager and use the search my computer option(not the search automatically option!) and point the search to the USB or CD location on the laptop.

The major problem in installing most Win7 install disc images is that they will probably be old non updated versions, so you'll end up installing a non up to date version of Win7, and then spend the next few days installing all the current updates.

What I do when reinstalling Windows is to first locate the latest window update files usually called a roll up file. That is it's a file you download to a computer, and combine it with a Windows installation iso file to make the Win install an already updated version.
Saves a few hours of Windows non update version updating itself, and even tho the 'rollup' update file is massive(sometimes 2Gb or so), it's usually smaller than all the updates combined individually(which could end up being 3Gb all up).

The process may sound daunting or convoluted, but there are many sites that show you clear and easy to follow instructions.

Here's one I found on How To Geeks (https://www.howtogeek.com/255540/the-last-windows-7-iso-youll-ever-need-how-to-slipstream-the-convenience-rollup/).

Takes a bit of work, but saves a lot of work.

Also of note: if you see or read of a way that you can save yourself a DVD by creating a bootable USB thumbdrive of Windows(with the rollup updates integrated) and want to give something liek that a go(highly recommended) .. you have to be sure you know how to set your laptop to boot from a USB drive in the BIOS.
Not hard to do, but I've helped people trying this Windows install method(from a USB drive instead of DVD) and it turned out that the issue was that the BIOS wasn't set to boot from a USB drive at all .. so it sat there with no OS, and no CD/DVD and just a black screen!
Setting the laptop to boot from a USB drive is simple too!

if all that sounds a bit daunting, I already have Win 7 rollup updated ISOs archived and it'd take me about 30 mins to make an install USB thumbdrive.
If you mailed me a USB thumbdrive, I can load it for 'ya, verify that it boots up, works, send it back and you'd be good to go.

But have a peek at the how to websites, they give good links to files available (most likely the same files I've downloaded from M$ too) and learn a new trick or two yourself.

Funnily, I got my daughter a new faster/more powerful laptop for Xmas to replace her old slow very cheap lappie.
So I now have a cheap unwanted lappie myself that no one wants, but can't bear to get rid of it. Waste not want not! Been meaning to give it a clean install too.

[Tins]

My personal preference for 2.5" HDDs has been Western Digital black drives. About $90 for a 1Tb model. Fast and reliable(I've had 3 different Seagates totally fail in about 3 years with not really a lot of usage). Other than the one that I got my son, which he banged massively hard in frustration once .. never had a WD drive fail on me. I have 4 in my current desktop from what seems like a million years ago now, all used heavily too.. and 4 Reds in my NAS also heavily used as a multimedia server.

A detailed post, with good advice, however I have not had the same luck as you with WD drives. I won't touch Seagate, but I don't think WD are much better. I like to find Hitachi HDDs when I can. Still, like I said, it's often luck.

[AK83]

A detailed post, with good advice, however I have not had the same luck as you with WD drives. ...

Which WDs?(ie. what colour?)
Laptop or desktop?

Hitachi are a lot better now than they used to be a while back .. notoriously referred too as 'Deathstar'(actually named Deskstar) due to their common failure rate. But they upped their game and came good a while back.
My 10" Win7 tablet(Gigabyte) had a ultra slim Hitachi too. Only reason I changed it to an SSD was for better battery life.

So my comment that an SSD may not be the performance upgrade many seem to think wasn't meant to discourage. Just inform.
There are more reasons to get an SSD than just faster performance. Much lower power, usually 1/3rd that of a HDD, and easily more saved when used in hibernation mode too.
Put a HDD in hibernation mode and it takes the rest of the day to re power up .. so it's sometimes not a viable option for general usage. Whereas an SSD wakes up almost instantly.
Also their resistance to impacts is much more well known as a feature, as HDDs can easily fail when knocked whilst running. Not as common as it used to be, but the possibility is always there.

I still have some of my old 250Gb WDs from wayyyy back when they were the antz pants .. about 2000 or 2001.

The only WD drive I use lightly is my Green drive(my primary photo backup archive), but it'll have to go soon as it's at 1.8Tb out of 2tb.
Samsung stopped making HDDs to concentrate on SSDs only, and from reading many tech reports, they were about as reliable a consumer HDD as you could get.

I have two SSDs, one Kingston and one Samsung, 4x WDs and 2x Samsungs HDDs on this current box. SSDs are new, HDDs are all recycled from my last desktop circa 2008.

Only drives I've ever had trouble with have been Seagates, and that one WD that my son smacked hard with his fist(on the laptop right above where the drive sits).
He had to go without a laptop for nearly two weeks tho(mad all day gamer type kid) .. and he bled over it for those two weeks. In the end I got him a Samsung SSD too tho, as his lappie is modern and fast.

[Ean Austral]

I wouldn't bother with the additional expense of an SSD on an old laptop.
Yes, they are faster, but they can only be as fast as the slowest device in the entire system!
That is, the SSD may transfer data at say 100Mb/s, but if the top speed of the SATA pipeline(on the motherboard in the laptop) is only 30Mb/s, then the speed of the SSD is just wasted.

SSDs are still good tho as they're not mechanical and hence not as susceptible to knocks and bumps whilst running.
So if there's a chance that you may fumble whilst using the lappie .. then SSD will make sense.

250 Gb SSD = about $100 + 1Tb(1000Gb) HDD can be had for about $85 or less. more = better quality, more durable(or larger again!)

At the moment, I see that the Seagate 1Tb firecuda SSHD is about the best value for money drive for an old latop. It'll probably outperform most old laptops drive line data throughputs(ie. it'll be faster than the laptops motherboard, has good capacity(1tb, but has an SSD section built into it too .. hence the SSHD in the name .. an SSD+HDD combo. that is the $85 option near the top end of the cheap range.
My personal preference for 2.5" HDDs has been Western Digital black drives. About $90 for a 1Tb model. Fast and reliable(I've had 3 different Seagates totally fail in about 3 years with not really a lot of usage). Other than the one that I got my son, which he banged massively hard in frustration once .. never had a WD drive fail on me. I have 4 in my current desktop from what seems like a million years ago now, all used heavily too.. and 4 Reds in my NAS also heavily used as a multimedia server.

Make sure that if you do the drive update, you go to the Toshiba website and download all the drivers and updated bits of software for your specific model.
Things like ethernet drivers, video drivers, wifi .. etc, etc.
Windows install will load generic drivers for your machine, but usually for optimal performance the Toshiba updates and drivers will work better. Not always, but usually!

Pop them into a USB thumbdrive or CD or whatever and have them ready to install .. and just use Windows driver update system's via Device Manager and use the search my computer option(not the search automatically option!) and point the search to the USB or CD location on the laptop.

The major problem in installing most Win7 install disc images is that they will probably be old non updated versions, so you'll end up installing a non up to date version of Win7, and then spend the next few days installing all the current updates.

What I do when reinstalling Windows is to first locate the latest window update files usually called a roll up file. That is it's a file you download to a computer, and combine it with a Windows installation iso file to make the Win install an already updated version.
Saves a few hours of Windows non update version updating itself, and even tho the 'rollup' update file is massive(sometimes 2Gb or so), it's usually smaller than all the updates combined individually(which could end up being 3Gb all up).

The process may sound daunting or convoluted, but there are many sites that show you clear and easy to follow instructions.

Here's one I found on How To Geeks (https://www.howtogeek.com/255540/the-last-windows-7-iso-youll-ever-need-how-to-slipstream-the-convenience-rollup/).

Takes a bit of work, but saves a lot of work.

Also of note: if you see or read of a way that you can save yourself a DVD by creating a bootable USB thumbdrive of Windows(with the rollup updates integrated) and want to give something liek that a go(highly recommended) .. you have to be sure you know how to set your laptop to boot from a USB drive in the BIOS.
Not hard to do, but I've helped people trying this Windows install method(from a USB drive instead of DVD) and it turned out that the issue was that the BIOS wasn't set to boot from a USB drive at all .. so it sat there with no OS, and no CD/DVD and just a black screen!
Setting the laptop to boot from a USB drive is simple too!

if all that sounds a bit daunting, I already have Win 7 rollup updated ISOs archived and it'd take me about 30 mins to make an install USB thumbdrive.
If you mailed me a USB thumbdrive, I can load it for 'ya, verify that it boots up, works, send it back and you'd be good to go.

But have a peek at the how to websites, they give good links to files available (most likely the same files I've downloaded from M$ too) and learn a new trick or two yourself.

Funnily, I got my daughter a new faster/more powerful laptop for Xmas to replace her old slow very cheap lappie.
So I now have a cheap unwanted lappie myself that no one wants, but can't bear to get rid of it. Waste not want not! Been meaning to give it a clean install too.

Thanks for the detailed post. I will look a bit more closer at what you have advised and see how I go. I am happy to learn this sort of thing which most would see as simple easy stuff , so will have a bit of a play around and see how I go.

I apprieciate the offer of the Windows 7 update and may yet take you up on it , but will try myself first.

Thanks and Cheers Ean

[Pedro_The_Swift]

I just sent back a Samsung SSD (850 Evo) under warranty,, was about 18 months old,, nice 5 year warranty on those though...
its all potluck.

[PhilipA]

I was able to successfully replace the HD in my Toshiba Satellite.
I did a mirror onto my WD external Hardisk, made a bootable Win 10 disk, removed and replaced the HD with a new one, then did a mirror of the external HD section.
I recovered all but my contacts AFAIR. I was even able to recover favourites etc.

I bought the same size and model HD as was in it to simplify matters.

The old girl now goes at comparatively the speed of light and hasn't had a glitch since, including updating to 1805 recently.
My original problem was that it would not update to 1705 and would not fix using all of the Win 10 utilities.
Regards Philip A

[AK83]

I was able to successfully replace the HD in my Toshiba Satellite.
I did a mirror onto my WD external Hardisk, made a bootable Win 10 disk, removed and replaced the HD with a new one, then did a mirror of the external HD section.
I recovered all but my contacts AFAIR. I was even able to recover favourites etc.

....

was the old drive playing up?
if not, this method is easy peasy and very quick to do.
When son bashed the daylights out of his WD laptop drive, I opened it up and found the head stuck. as the drive is now dead, moving it wasn't going to break it any more than it being dead anyhow.
I got lucky, and it spun up for one last time. I cloned it(I have a HDD docking station for ease of doing such stuff) to the new SSD, and his lappie booted up as tho nothing had happened!
Didn't need drivers for the SSD as I thought may be an issue, just made sure that the SSD was recognised in the BIOS before bootup was attempted.

Mirroring/cloning of a failing drive usually doesn't work, and the OP is better off with a fresh installation. Just the fresh install will give a speed improvement.

Oh! and one more point to note for Ean.
Sometimes a full hard drive can do similar things to a failing hard drive.
Sons SSD had to be restricted to 250Gb(cost!) compared to the 750Gb drive I had fitted to it. He's a gamer and gamers need storage. Every other week he's got some weird java/mod(or whatever .. I'm not smart enough to know what it all is) file that takes up 1.something Gb for his games.
Every week it's the same whinging .. his laptop is playing up. cant' do this, cant' do that.
Problem is usually Windows updates being automatic. So they need (eg.) 1Gb and he only had a few hundred Mb space remaining on the SSD.
So first thing to do on the old lappie is check the properties on the old HDD, and specifically how much space reamining. Rightclick the C drive and choose Properties in the small window.

Oh! .. sorry I keep remembering other things to check for too.
Most original install HDDs on most laptops have a separate (usually D: drive) partition on the actual HDD. Sometimes they're set to hidden(from the user) so that they don't tamper with them.
You can find this out by the size of the HDD.
eg. if a 500Gb brand XXX hard drive, then it will have something like 480Gb of actual usable space in total. if the C drive(in the properties) says only 450Gb or much less than that again, then there's a good likely hood that you almost certainly have a D: backup drive.

If you can't see a D: drive and want to be sure it's there or not, another give away is if it has a DVD/CD/optical drive of any other kind. What letter has it been assigned? if E: then most likely you have a D: drive.
Why this is important, is that it's an image of the original install of the operating system.
That is, no need to install, you just do a backup/reinstall from that D: drive.

Also important, is it Windows Home or Pro version(makes a bit of a difference).

[Ean Austral]

So the info I can find on the HDD
Toshiba 500GB
SATA 3Gbps
8MB
2.5 inch

the program is Windows 7 Home Premium. Looking in the properties it tells me I have 352GB free of 450GB ( C ) drive
CD drive seems to be the ( D )

The thing is just so slow , like 10 minutes just to open a page , but I get a warning showing up saying that the system needs to be backed up as the hard drive is failing or something like that.

Cheers Ean

[PhilipA]

So run the Microsoft utilities and then back up to an external disk or whatever.
Get Win10 and make a bootable DVD.
Replace the HDD.
Boot into Win 10 then restore from your external media.

Regards Philip A

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Havent you fixed this yet?
I bet if it was a prawn boat it would've been fixed by now![tonguewink]

[Disco-tastic]

If your drive is working I would try and clone it using a clone utility. You will need a USB adapter for the drive. I've used clonezilla before, which requires a separate USB/CD to be created, though there at others that work too.

The benefit of this over the windows utility is that you won't need to reinstall windows and all that stuff around - just swap in your new drive and it should boot up as normal.

[Ean Austral]

Havent you fixed this yet?
I bet if it was a prawn boat it would've been fixed by now![tonguewink]

No not yet, got more important things at the moment like hopefully seeing my house in daylight, bloody boats have seen me leaving before sunrise and home after sunset for about 3 weeks ,but that may come to an end this Saturday.

I should be able to concentrate on it next week.

Cheers Ean

Aren't you supposed to be on hiatus somewhere ??

[AK83]

Sorry been a bit busy myself too, and trying to get similar stuff sorted on my daughters old (ASUS) laptop too.
What I'm doing is make Win7 install USB stick, and stuff like that.

Part of what I'm trying to do tho is to mod the overall Win7 install file(this one is Home Premium too) to remove all the clutter/garbage/flotsam/etc, that I know I'll never use.
Stuff like Windows Media Player, Games, and crap like that. Makes the overall size of the Windows install file much smaller AND makes the actual computer install leaner/faster/smaller.

eg. the actual DVD, or a USB stick media will have all the versions of Windows on them Home/Home Premium/Pro/Ultimate/Enterprise and both x86 and 64bit versions too, and you just choose the one you install given your key.
So even tho the entire 7+Gig file for the install, you really only need about 1.something Gb of it.
I got my USB stick down to just under 1Gb removing stuff out of it(and automating the install)

I got the Win7 USB booting, but beyond that, I can't get it to load onto the HDD(mine's a Samsung).
Cryptic error msg, pointing to a device driver required, but all device drivers are on the Windows install folders! .. so it beats me what's going wrong .. until just a while ago.

For the past 10+ years I've been working with 64bit Windows, and I think this old lappie is 32bit .. hence why it it gave this arcane error that made no sense.
That is, I made a 64bit only Win7Service pack 1 and cumulative updates installation USB, where I think it needed a 32bit version .. but it still gave errors on the HDD that again made no sense.

So I made a new 32 bit version of the USB install stick, and then the HDD errors are even more insane.
It now says the HDD is 'write protected', and I format the drive using the built in tools(DISKPART) in the windows install, so the newly formatted drives/partitions are still all write protected!
DISKPART says they're not write protected .. so I reckon the HDD may have some errors/bit corruption or something.

So for Ean: I'd recommend to go to the Toshiba website for that model laptop!
if it's a 'Satellite 1300' or whatever, google that exact model and look for links to the Toshiba website.
Don't go to 'Drivers.com' or DriverUpdates.com .. etc. Go directly to the Toshiba support site and look for info on whether it's 32bit or 64bit at the least.
AND download some of the drivers on their site, and store them somewhere too(like on a current computer).
Important drivers will be VGA(display), Eth(ethernet), wifi/bluetooth if it has them, touchpad(not vital, but could be required) and Chipset drivers.

Note with downloads on their site(s) .. and all laptop manufacturers do this! .. they have all manner of helper/assistant software to download. All of it is just bloat.
The leaner you keep the install, the quicker it is to load and run.

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Any updates Ean,,
a new Samsung 500GB SSD 860 EVO is around $$190, worth every cent.

[Ean Austral]

Got an all but new hard drive thru the IT department at work and just recently loaded Windows 10.

Still learning how to navigate the new windows but atleast I have a computer again

Cheers Ean

[Pedro_The_Swift]

The first thing I do is delete all the windows metro ****,, and add the windows 7 start button/menu.

[Ean Austral]

Now your just trying to trick me [bigrolf].

So so far I prefer windows 7 to navigate thru but haven't spent a lot of time on 10 so probably an unfair comparison.

cheers Ean

[PhilipA]

The windows 7 start button is still there in win10.
All you have to do is right click on the flag.
Although in the latest version of win 10 the Control Panel has been deleted from the list and you have to type control panel in the box next to the flag.
Regards Philip A