Changing HDD - two problems.

shayser

I'm changing an Inspiron 9300 hdd.

1. Burning the recovery cd fails. PROGRAMS > DELL ACCESSORIES > DELL OS RECOVERY CD. It gets to about 80/90% and says it cannot write to the CD. I've tried two new CDRs but both had the problem.

2. Replacement disk is different. Both Hitachi. Both ATA/IDE. Old 60GB, New 100GB. Old 5400rpm, new 7200rpm. But the connectors are different. On my existing hdd, the connectors look a bit like a smaller version of the connectors on a PCI card - a single row of flat/wider pins on a card-like protrusion. On the new hdd, the connectors look like a smaller version of a 3.5" IDE - two parallel rows of protruding pins. What hdd should I have got?

Help me change my disk!!

Thanks.

ethernet

shayser wrote:

I'm changing an Inspiron 9300 hdd.

1. Burning the recovery cd fails. PROGRAMS > DELL ACCESSORIES > DELL OS RECOVERY CD. It gets to about 80/90% and says it cannot write to the CD. I've tried two new CDRs but both had the problem.

2. Replacement disk is different. Both Hitachi. Both ATA/IDE. Old 60GB, New 100GB. Old 5400rpm, new 7200rpm. But the connectors are different. On my existing hdd, the connectors look a bit like a smaller version of the connectors on a PCI card - a single row of flat/wider pins on a card-like protrusion. On the new hdd, the connectors look like a smaller version of a 3.5" IDE - two parallel rows of protruding pins. What hdd should I have got?

Help me change my disk!!

Thanks.

Don't know about the first problem. Can you change the speed at which the CD is burned? Could you run the app on another PC?

Regarding the hard drive, did you happen to order that Hitachi off Komplett? I ordered a 100 GB 7,200 rpm IDE Hitachi hard drive but was sent a SATA drive. In the process of returning it now. Bloody unreal even though the SKU on the website matches the SKU on the package.

shayser

I don't think I can run the app on another computer. It's preinstalled and specific to the laptop. It bundles the OS, factory defaults, drivers, software etc.

The Hitachi label on both disks is the same but the connectors are different. Don't understand it. Got it from Elara.

ressem

The IDE interface is the 2 rows of protuding pins.

The Dell machines often place a little removable connector over the pins. Put the two drives side by side and you should see where the hard drive stops and dell adapter bit starts.

Using your fingernail and light pressure at the join should allow you to slide the connector off the pins, so it can be fitted to the new drive.

shayser

ressem wrote:

The IDE interface is the 2 rows of protuding pins.

The Dell machines often place a little removable connector over the pins. Put the two drives side by side and you should see where the hard drive stops and dell adapter bit starts.

Using your fingernail and light pressure at the join should allow you to slide the connector off the pins, so it can be fitted to the new drive.

Cheers. I'll do that.




Still have the problem with the burn of the recovery cd not working.

shayser

Well done dell.

Sent them a message via their support webform last night. This morning they rang me and offered to send a windows xp disk, driver disk and two software disks. They said it would take 5 working days. I asked could it be sent sooner as I couldn't be without the laptop for this long. After a couple of minutes on hold, they came back to me and said they would ship by courier and I would have it tomorrow. No mention of a charge.

Very pleasantly surprised!

ressem

Are they good quality CDRs? Do they work with other CD burning programs on the computer.

E.g. I have seen those Imation brand CDRs lead people to think that their CD burners/software were broken, as their computer reported faults that went away with another brand.