Hi,
Tonight I noticed that my computer was acting really funny... would take a longgggg time to open anything, and the hard drive was buzzing alot. It would get to a point where the computer would hardly run anymore, and I suspected the hard drive, and upon running smartd I realized that it was finding bad sectors and read errors all over the place. Think my drives going dead... been through this one before... on a 486. Anyway, as this is a laptop (HP Pavilion DV4305US), it has a smaller drive etc. The drive in this computer spins at 4200RPM. If I'm going to have to get a new hard drive, I'm going to want something alittle faster (although the 80GB was enough storage for me for the most part), and wanted a 5400RPM drive. Could I safely install a faster drive in this laptop? I wasn't sure about weather laptops handled forign/generic drives as well as desktops do. I wont short out anything by installing a higher RPM drive will I? I believe its a .45 current increase over most 4200RPM drives. I know I'll probably get less battery time as well with a faster drive. Anybody have any suggestions or advice? I'm not real expierienced with laptop hardware, beyond a few PIs.

Marshall

If you got a PC you may want to get a SCSI accesories ( a PC IDE converter for laptop drives ).[carefull with pins layout]
When you have one ,there should be no difficulties on inspecting your Laptop drives from PC's.

LARGE CAPACITY DRIVES usually takes more time to access though we can't feel it.

Feel free to asks...

-------Many vital information on my previous posts.-----------

Laptop Drives are Still IDE Devices. So installing a Laptop drive with a fater RPM and Larger Cache will definitely help your performance.

Odds are with the advancement of technology the new Hard drive will not adversely effect the Battery Life of your laptop.


Bobymc Is correct you can get an adapter to hookup your Laptop drive in a PC, to aid in rescuing any data from the drive.. although it is not a SCSI device.. Pretty basic adapter really, since the I/O and Power connections on a 2.5" laptop drive all go through a single connector..
http://www.pcconnection.com/ProductD...=10-28818756-2

Yes it's not a SCSI accesories, I was about to exp but I forgot.
It's just a label from my IDE 2.5" connector.

You can safely install a drive with a higher rpm. You will get better performance, but as you indicated the length of time you can run on battery will be reduced.

I replaced my original 40G 5400 rpm drive with an 80G 7200 rpm drive, and have been very happy with it.