Upgrading Inspiron 8200 Harddisk

Finally I also decided to reinstall the Windows XP (Home Ed.) on my more than 3 years old Laptop. Why ? Same reason as given here and here. Reinstall was due from last more than six months and I was just dragging it. This reinstall was also a chance to upgrade my current 30GB harddisk, which was completely full, with 50-60% was taken by windows installation and some unidentifiable junk.

I have Dell Inspiron 8200 1.7-GHz, Intel Pentium 4 Processor, 768MB DDR SDRAM, DVD/CD-R drive, 15-inch TFT display, etc. It had 30GB hard drive, I think, IC25N030ATDA?? 9.5mm 4200rpm disk. Inspiron 8200 FAQ (now Inspiron 8200 wiki) was a useful link to identify this and also for many other useful informations.

Brought a Western Digital Scorpio WD800VE 80GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive from Newegg. I think prize at Fry's were similar. Inspiron 8200 has a media bay in which devices like cd/dvd read/writer, harddisk drive , floppy drive or battery can be inserted to use. This provide a good flexibility. I also got the 2nd harddrive Media bay Carrier 9.5mm (part# 29MFN) from Impact computers & electronics in ~$42 (including shipping)so that I can use my old 30 GB hard drive as an optional second hard drive.

Idea was to install a Linux distribution in media bay 2nd hard drive, such that I can use the Linux, if I wish.

Of course, before removing, I took a complete data backup of my 30GB hard disk on an external USB2/Firewire harddrive

Removal of 30GB HD and Installation of new 80 GB harddisk was straight forward and simple. Dell resources itself provided the useful howto in Owners' manual. To install the harddisk in media bay, I got useful tips from http://www.bay-wolf.com/hdmedbay.htm.

There was no problem in detecting or using both the hard drive. Bios can see both of these drives.

Now the next step is to install Windows Xp, drivers, other software etc. on my new 80GB drive. And, then install Linux on media bay drive.

technorati tags: Inspiron, 8200, Hard-disk, Upgrade, WindowsXP, Dell, Harddrive