Help please with upgrading toshiba laptop

princesszpuzzles

Hi there. Can anyone help me please. I want to upgrade the harddrive on my toshiba tecra 8100 but have been told I will then need to install an operating system on it. Can I do this myself if I buy the harddrive and use the windows xp o/s I have already, or is this best left to the experts? The hard drive is only 6gb with xp o/s preinstalled at present. I need at least 20gb. Also if I have a Linskys wireless router will I need a Linskys wireless pcmcia card or would another brand be compatible to make my laptop wireless at home?
All help gratefully received. Thanks.

danivtec

If you have the original disc that came with the laptop you can install a new hard drive.

Just be careful what connection your motherboard has, would suspect it is an IDE (PATA) connection so be sure to get an hard drive with that if it is.

Installing windows is easy, insert your disc and set your bios to boot from the cd first, then change it back to boot from the hard drive first.

You can use any wireless card but some people swear by using the same manufacturer as their router

princesszpuzzles

Hi Danivtec

Thanks for your quick reply. I bought laptop off ebay in very good condition but no original disk. I think I may have someone install the harddrive but try installing windows myself with your help hopefully! Once the hard drive is installed how do I access the bios settings please?
Thanks

BillScarab

Have you considered just buying a protable external hard drive isntead? No need to re-install windows then and very easy to transfer your data if you replace the machine.

Dime_Bar

Usually Del or F2 as the system firsts boots, ( it should tell you)

Whilst your doing this you may as well put in a 40GB or higher as you will find the price diference is minimal.

princesszpuzzles

BillScarab wrote: »

Have you considered just buying a protable external hard drive isntead? No need to re-install windows then and very easy to transfer your data if you replace the machine.

Hi. So if my hard drive is only 6gb and I buy an external hard drive of 80gb does this give me a total hard drive of 86gb? When I install new software does it automatically get stored on the external hard drive or do I need to direct it there? Thanks for your help.

albertross_2

if it has a CD writer, you could use acronis trueimage, norton ghost, or similar to make an image of the current hard disk to CD, then fit new HD, and restore that image to the new HD, along with all your settings and file, and windows. Neater than messing about with an external hard disk.

Aliktren

princesszpuzzles wrote: »

Hi. So if my hard drive is only 6gb and I buy an external hard drive of 80gb does this give me a total hard drive of 86gb? When I install new software does it automatically get stored on the external hard drive or do I need to direct it there? Thanks for your help.

Yes you'd get 86 gb, but you'd have to tell software to install onto that disk when it asks you for the install directory

In your situtation, with no install disks, i'd definatly agree that you should go USB drive,

Ghost may not work with XP activation ?? (not tried that recently so cant confirm)

albertross_2

You'd also have to have a usb drive permanently hanging out of it, for a laptop, not really a viable solution to a simple problem.

Aliktren

its not a simple problem when you dont have the original OS disks , one issue during re-install and you're off to spend 50 quid on a new set of XP disks

albertross_2

Which is why I mentioned disk imaging software, which makes the job easy and cheap.

If you get a seagate/maxtor drive, they have rebadged trueimage software available for free.