Aspire notebook - changing hard drive?

As well as not throttling on batteries, my notebook's hard drive now seems
to have died. I was getting random blue screens in Windows XP and now it
can't complete scandisk. The hard drive is a Toshiba unit, for which I
couldn't find a diagnostic program, but the Hitachi one that's said to work
with Toshiba drives states that the drive is faulty.

The notebook is an Aspire 1501LCe and the manual doesn't cover replacing the
hard drive. I'm comfortable doing this on a full size PC but I've never
taken a notebook apart before. Can anyone tell me how to get at the hard
drive easily?

Thanks

JB

"Justin Baker ntlworld.com" justin.baker@removethis wrote in message
...
As well as not throttling on batteries, my notebook's hard drive now seems
to have died. I was getting random blue screens in Windows XP and now it
can't complete scandisk. The hard drive is a Toshiba unit, for which I
couldn't find a diagnostic program, but the Hitachi one that's said to
work with Toshiba drives states that the drive is faulty.

The notebook is an Aspire 1501LCe and the manual doesn't cover replacing
the hard drive. I'm comfortable doing this on a full size PC but I've
never taken a notebook apart before. Can anyone tell me how to get at the
hard drive easily?

Thanks

JB


On most laptops there is usually a cover underneath which covers the
harddrive. just looked under mine and its even labelled. just have a look
for any oblongish covers and have a look behind them. then its just a case
of unpluging the mini ide/power cable.

Paul.

"Paul" wrote in message
...

On most laptops there is usually a cover underneath which covers the
harddrive. just looked under mine and its even labelled. just have a look
for any oblongish covers and have a look behind them. then its just a case
of unpluging the mini ide/power cable.

Thanks for the reply, it's actually behind the battery on the Aspire 1500!

Anyway, replacement drive ordered, and I wondered if I could get another
question answered?

I don't have a standalone Windows XP install CD, only the recovery CD. The
original hard drive was a 40Gb unit, the replacement will be an 80Gb unit.
Will the recovery CD make use of all of the space, or will it only partition
40Gb of it?

Thanks,

JB

"Justin Baker ntlworld.com" justin.baker@removethis wrote in message
...

"Paul" wrote in message
...

On most laptops there is usually a cover underneath which covers the
harddrive. just looked under mine and its even labelled. just have a look
for any oblongish covers and have a look behind them. then its just a
case of unpluging the mini ide/power cable.

Thanks for the reply, it's actually behind the battery on the Aspire 1500!

Anyway, replacement drive ordered, and I wondered if I could get another
question answered?

I don't have a standalone Windows XP install CD, only the recovery CD.
The original hard drive was a 40Gb unit, the replacement will be an 80Gb
unit. Will the recovery CD make use of all of the space, or will it only
partition 40Gb of it?

Thanks,

JB


Not sure about this. i would imagine that the recovery cd is an image of the
original drive so i would not be surprised if it only sees 40gb.

I replaced the HD of my Travelmate 243.
The original was a 30Go, replacing it a 80Go.
I did not have any problem:
- the HD is in a drawer behind the battery
- the CD recovery recognized the 80Go in only one partition
- I put the 30Go in an external USB case.
Now, I Have 110Go !

:-))

Success!

I now have a working notebook with an 80Gb HDD.

Thanks for the help!

JB