Laptop HDD replacement

[spannersatcx]

Daughter has a Toshiba Equium P200D-139, the HDD is almost full, so am looking at getting a larger capacity drive.

2 questions (I think)

Win 7 installed, is it really as easy as making a recovery/repair disk and then doing a full back up, popping the new drive in the doing the repair/recovery then restoring the backup?

the current drive is a Toshiba MK8046GSX which it says is ATA-8 specs (http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Path=StorageSolutions/2.5-inchHardDiskDrives/MK8046GSX/MK8046GSXSpecifications) am I right in reading that that is a SATA drive, and does it matter if it is SATA I or II?

sorry 3 questions, any recommendations, was looking at 160-320gb drives?

[Mac the Knife]

I reckon a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 320GB drive would hit the spot

WD Scorpio Blue 320 GB SATA Hard Drives ( WD3200BPVT ) (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=802)

But one in my MacMini a while ago when I started running out of space and I'm very happy with it.

:ok:

Mac

Yes, I do prefer WD to Seagate or other HDD brands - just had less probs with 'em

PS: Just realised the other parts of your question.

1) You're almost always better off with a clean install with Winblows

2) I always make 2 partitions if I am forced to use a single disk, one for the OS (whatever it may be) and apps and the other for data. With the MacMini I have an 80GB "System" partition and 240GB "Data" partition. Makes backups and migration easier.

[Saab Dastard]

The drive you provided the link to is ATA-8 compliant, which would make it SATA 3. That fits with the claimed max throughput of 759 megabytes per second.

The simplest way to migrate from the existing disk to another would be to use drive cloning software to make an image of the disk, then put that image on the new disk, either creating a partition the same size as the original, or expanding the image to fill the new disk. This can be done over a network, to a DVD-RW drive or to an external disk.

Bear in mind that you end up with an exact replica (block by block) of the original system disk, so if it was full of crap and running slowly, so will the new system.

SD

[spannersatcx]

Well that was easy. Win 7 repair/recovery disk made, backup to usb ext drive, old HDD out new 320GB WD HDD in boot from CD, reinstall image and it works. :D

Only thing I had to do was resize the partitions, but otherwise a lot easier in W7 than previous windows where I've done it, 3.1. 95, 98, 98SE, XP and Vista.