Notebook... New Harddisk

[Maldini]

The harddisk on my current notebook seems like its about to die on me soon, weird ticking and clicking sounds every so often, so I'm preparing to get a new harddisk. Thing is though, I've never tried changing a notebook harddisk, so would like to ask a few (perhaps stupid) questions.

My notebook came with driver CDs and a boot floppy, but all the documentation seemed orientated to doing a simple recovery of the original system from factory. I'm more inclined to be a fresh install with perhaps a new OS.

So, my floppy drive is an external USB one, if I get the new harddisk and plug it in, will my notebook still have the ability to recognize the USB? Or will my floppy drive be unreachable? Or would the process be opposite to installing a harddisk on a desktop, driver CD, then floppy?
I've looked on the CDs and its full of different executables and stuff, which I dare not open yet in case I do any damage to the notebook now. Is the driver installtion process relatively straight forward?

By the way, my notebook is a NEC Versa P440 (old, yes I know), just in case anyone has done such an installation on one of these and could share some experiences.

Thanks!

 

[dnuggett]

Do you have the Versa Bay on yours?

 

[HeliosUtH]

So, what is really the problem ? You get a new HDD, you install it (only if you know how, otherwise ask a SPECIALIST) . The floppy is not dependent on the HDD. The process of changin your drive is preety straight forward for someone who knows what he is doing.
After you have installed you drive (you should have it preformatted first at the shop you buy it from ... NTFS) you run the OS installation CD that came with the laptop. This CD should be bootable (i don't know if this is the term) and the installation proccess will go smoothly.
In theory you can access you floppy as you have natively support for USB 1.1 from you motherboard.
Best of luck

 

[dnuggett]

Originally posted by: HeliosUtH
So, what is really the problem ? You get a new HDD, you install it (only if you know how, otherwise ask a SPECIALIST) . The floppy is not dependent on the HDD. The process of changin your drive is preety straight forward for someone who knows what he is doing.
After you have installed you drive (you should have it preformatted first at the shop you buy it from ... NTFS) you run the OS installation CD that came with the laptop. This CD should be bootable (i don't know if this is the term) and the installation proccess will go smoothly.
In theory you can access you floppy as you have natively support for USB 1.1 from you motherboard.
Best of luck

Ddi you bother to look at the laptop he has before spouting?

 

[HeliosUtH]

Yes I did; you think I am some newbie punkin ? What does spouting mean anyway ? So correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Maldini]

Originally posted by: dnuggett
Do you have the Versa Bay on yours?

Yes, I think I have the Versa Bay on mine (unless I have mistaken what the VersaBay is; its the hot-swappable cdrw drive I believe).

ANother point that I think I forgot to mention is that recovery for this system seems to be done via a hidden partition on the harddisk, so there actually isn't any boot-able recovery disk to use, its only the driver disk and a floppy (which is labelled as for 'recovery' processes).

Thanks again

 

[dnuggett]

Originally posted by: Maldini

Originally posted by: dnuggett
Do you have the Versa Bay on yours?

Yes, I think I have the Versa Bay on mine (unless I have mistaken what the VersaBay is; its the hot-swappable cdrw drive I believe).

ANother point that I think I forgot to mention is that recovery for this system seems to be done via a hidden partition on the harddisk, so there actually isn't any boot-able recovery disk to use, its only the driver disk and a floppy (which is labelled as for 'recovery' processes).

Thanks again

Does the laptop have an onboard CD drive?

 

[Maldini]

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: Maldini

Originally posted by: dnuggett
Do you have the Versa Bay on yours?

Yes, I think I have the Versa Bay on mine (unless I have mistaken what the VersaBay is; its the hot-swappable cdrw drive I believe).

ANother point that I think I forgot to mention is that recovery for this system seems to be done via a hidden partition on the harddisk, so there actually isn't any boot-able recovery disk to use, its only the driver disk and a floppy (which is labelled as for 'recovery' processes).

Thanks again

Does the laptop have an onboard CD drive?

Well, I do have a cd drive if thats what you mean; its the drive that currently occupies the VersaBay....(since apart from this bay, theres no other spot for such a component internally)

 

[dnuggett]

Well then, pull the old drive put the new one in get your OS of choice on CD and install it.

That easy. No need to worry about having the drive formatted before installation if you are going to choose Win.