upgrade laptop hard drive

bushka

Hello all.I have a Compaq Presario 12XL510 laptop and was wondering if someone can please tell me how I can find out the largest size of hard drive I can upgrade my laptop to.Someone told me it is 20gb but I'm just looking to confirm this.
Many thanks

MercilessKiller

Buy a USB External Hard Drive imo easier, faster etc etc and can have up to 500GB!!!

Ditto

Have a look at these, I use use these myself.

Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE 250GB 7200RPM SATA2/300 16MB Cache – OEM = £66.26 inc VAT

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=94403



External Enclosure for 3.5" SATA Hard Drives = £16.99 inc vat

http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=1052

Jon_C

Laptop (2.5in) drives definitely go up to 80GB but I can't say for certain whether it's even higher.

I upgraded to an 80GB drive from PC World a while back and it cost me around £85 if I remember correctly.

I just backed up my data (pics, music etc) first and did a clean install of XP on the new drive. I had another use for the old drive in mind already and there wasn't that much stuff on it by that stage as I had had the laptop for just a couple of months. Saved ghosting drives etc which I wasn't confident of doing right.

I would only bother to upgrade your internal 2.5in drive if you really have to. Otherwise an external drive is much better value per GB. If going down this route, decide whether the external drive has to be portable.

If so, go for a 2.5in external drive as these are generally USB-powered. If not, the 3.5in drives are much cheaper but require an AC power source so they aren't really as handy to take from place to place, unless it's just from one office to another etc.

https://www.svp.co.uk is a good place to start browsing around for drives, whichever you opt for.

fguk

As for your question of "how much will my laptop take"

Take a look at this website

http://www.getpartsonline.com/gpohd-c1200-80r.html

It is useless for you because its in the US, but it does seem to suggest that at least an 80gb drive is compatible with your laptop. It also has a link to a utility that, even if your computer wont handle a drive that big, will allow you to use it by partitioning.

bushka

Thanks for the replies guys.Given me plenty to think about.

Little_John

Laptop drives go all the way up to 160GB (Seagate Momentus) for your info. Your laptop will take an 80GB, they also come in SATA and ATA your laptop is quite old so should use an ATA connection, 80GB drives give the best value for money at the moment at about £70, 60GB are about £60 and 100GB about £90.

Fitting an external drive will be cheaper but it is a pain in the !!!!!! having to get it out everytime you need to use the laptop especially if you start installing applications on to it. also a 3.5 inch external is pretty heavy if you do go for an external buy an 2.5 they are alot lighter and as posted before will porer from the USB port or even the PS2 port.

I bought my drive and case from https://www.scan.co.uk they have them from £8.17 now, jees I paid £30 for mine plus the drive. your laptop is proberbly only USB1.1 so an external drive wont be very quick for you.


EDIT:
Laptop hard drives are on offer this weekend at scan check out the today only page and the mix it pages there is an offer on there too for anexternal 2.52 drive