New HD for fairly old Dell

[starlitegaize]

I've been given a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop, but the hard drive has totally died... Any suggestions as to what is the best value for money hard drive replacement for it would be very grateful? Is there anything I should know about when it comes to installing the replacement one?
Thanks in advance.

[mjc]

Any IDE/ATA laptop drive up to at least 100GB should work.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150380%201035907889%201035507777&name=5400%20RPM

[starlitegaize]

Thanks for that - shall look into it

[Paul Komski]

You certainly want to stay under 127GB - as mjc intimated - to avoid any BIOS limitations. It's got harder to source smaller disks nowadays and unfortunately we don't have NewEgg on this side of the pond though there are obviously other sources.

Basically swap the drive with the old one and with the battery out and the PC removed from any power supply. Laptop HDDs very seldom need jumpering.

EDITED POST
I have edited the above because of my bad scrutiny in not noticing this was an approx 5 yr old Laptop - so not all that ancient, as surmised.

[Sylvander]

Why spend money fitting a NEW HDD to an OLDer laptop.
Does it include USB 2.0?
If it does...

How about running [Puppies are usually small and FAST] either Puppy Linux 4.1.2 official release (http://www.puppylinux.org/downloads/official-releases/puppy-linux-412) [CD], or else one of its derivatives [a "Puplet"] like the minimalist, elegant Boxpup 4.1.2 (http://www.puppylinux.org/downloads/puplets/boxpup) [CD], or the larger [765 MB, wow!] more comprehensive, colorful, Muppy Linux 008.4c (http://files.filefront.com/Muppy+Live+0084c+ENiso/;12868301;/fileinfo.html) [DVD].

You could ignore the internal HDD...
Either run from the optical disk and make a "pup_save" file on a USB Flash Drive or external USB HDD.

And/Or...
Install to USB Flash Drive and boot that.
If the BIOS doesn't support booting USB...
Is there a FDD fitted?
If there is you can easily make [within Puppy] a "WakePup2" bootable floppy that loads Puppy off the Flash Drive.
Puppy normally runs totally in RAM [the reason it's so FAST]. 256 MB is OK, but the more the better.
If the save file is on a USB HDD it would only update the save file once at shut-down.
If on a Flash Drive it saves very infrequently [every 30 min or as configured by the user] to save wear.

This way you aren't investing any new hardware that cannot be re-used or moved to another system.
A Flash Drive, and/or external HDD can be used on any system.
If you store your data files on [a FAT32 partition on] the USB HDD, those can be accessed on any system.
There's even a method [I believe] whereby a Puppy installed to a Flash Drive can be booted on any system.
A Puppy "live" optical disk can certainly be booted on almost any system.
In which case you can have different save files, one for each system you work on.

You can easily run Windows programs under WINE within Puppy.
I have [running under WINE] things like the FREE version of SyncBack, and all my passwords in the "Acerose Password Vault", and ClamWin anti-virus, and...
Somebody found by testing that Windows programs ran 20% faster within Puppy on their hardware.
You can even run XP in a virtual machine within Puppy!

[starlitegaize]

Thanks guys...

I've found out that the Dell HDD had a connector between its pins and the slot it fits into... no where can I find one of those!!!

[jlreich]

If it has one it should be on the old hard drive. Carefully pull it off and put it on the new one. It may be hard to tell it is there, but if the pins appear different then the new hard drive it is on there.

[starlitegaize]

Yes, I realised too late and hammered the old hard drive... thus smashing the connection... So any ideas where I might get a replacement? Or indeed what it's called?

[Paul Komski]

Some drives came with such a removable connection but most have it directly soldered to the PCB. I have no idea where you would get a replacement assembly. The best chance might be to pull one from an equivalent drive that has gone to the "hdd graveyard" or from somewhere like eBay. I'm guessing its a 40pin male to male IDE connector but a digital pic might help us to know for sure.

It's possibly one of these (http://www.pccables.com/01810.htm) but cant see the back of the assembly to see if it matches.

[starlitegaize]

Thanks guys, found one on Ebay... So fingers crossed it might arrive soon.