Substitute Hard Drive Dell Latitude D600

I just went to work for a company and they provided me w/a Dell Latitude
D600. The problem is the PC is in a virtual time warp straightjacket.
Specifically the notebook runs Windows 2000 Professional and Office 2000. I
have been using Win XP OS and and Office 2003. It is next to impossible to
install any new apps.

I would like to use my own formatted plain vanilla hard drive w/this system.
Buy a 5400 rpm notebook drive w/same form factor (does anyone know the spec)
and then install XP and Office 2003 on it.

Is there any reason I cannot do this? For example there is a hidden
diagnostics partition on the notebook. Can the notebook work w/out it. I
don't care about the diagnostics and can always swap the original hard drive
w/it. I have done this w/a Compaq notebook w/no problem. Can the bios of
the Dell D600 be accessed independently w/out the invisible partition? Is
there anything in the bios that will permit my company to lock me out of
putting another drive in there. I have no intention of connecting the
notebook to our network unless I use the original drive.

Finally, can you buy the drawer, clip and drive assembly that houses the
drive in the Dell notebook as an off the shelf item? Are they bundled
w/drive. I want this so I can swap the drives w/out changing the clip. Or do
I have to buy a whole new second drive from Dell, which might be costly.

Thanks

I have swapped out hard drives with the d600. The extra one that I used I
purchased from Dell. All you have to do is swap them. I then go to the
dell website and down load the appropriate drivers for the updated os. It
just takes a little time.

The d600 will read/write upto 80 gigs.

Larry Greenwood


"joe smith" wrote in message
news:hhovc.636$uY.267@attbi_s53...
I just went to work for a company and they provided me w/a Dell Latitude
D600. The problem is the PC is in a virtual time warp straightjacket.
Specifically the notebook runs Windows 2000 Professional and Office 2000.
I
have been using Win XP OS and and Office 2003. It is next to impossible
to
install any new apps.

I would like to use my own formatted plain vanilla hard drive w/this
system.
Buy a 5400 rpm notebook drive w/same form factor (does anyone know the
spec)
and then install XP and Office 2003 on it.

Is there any reason I cannot do this? For example there is a hidden
diagnostics partition on the notebook. Can the notebook work w/out it. I
don't care about the diagnostics and can always swap the original hard
drive
w/it. I have done this w/a Compaq notebook w/no problem. Can the bios of
the Dell D600 be accessed independently w/out the invisible partition? Is
there anything in the bios that will permit my company to lock me out of
putting another drive in there. I have no intention of connecting the
notebook to our network unless I use the original drive.

Finally, can you buy the drawer, clip and drive assembly that houses the
drive in the Dell notebook as an off the shelf item? Are they bundled
w/drive. I want this so I can swap the drives w/out changing the clip. Or
do
I have to buy a whole new second drive from Dell, which might be costly.

Thanks