new hd, new os?

seanandnik

seanandnik

New Member
Sorry for the question but i am new here and searched to no avail. I think the hard drive in my daughters laptop is gone, it is an HP xt375, and a few reviews of this machine state hard drive failures as common. So i guess I will replace the hard drive, it is a Pent 4 2.4 512 40g machine. So what do i need to look for when buying a new drive? 5400? 7200? sata? I am not sure waht most of this means, just tell me what is compatable with my machine, i was thinking of a 60 or 80g drive and also will i have to reload win xp after the new drive? maybe i'll drop it at a local comp. repair shop to be safe, but i like to do this stuff myself, i am fairly confident in my abilities but have never done this and am unsure on quite a few steps, a step by step process would be nice, anyone know of any?
 
ok

that drive looks fine, but what about replacing it and reprogramming the os? what do i have to do? i think i can replace the drive easy enough but what about when i reboot what do i need to do first?
 
no cd

i bought this laptop used from a friend with a 30 day xp in it, the os was expiring in 30 days, i called microsoft, told them my machine crashed and was having problems rebooting and they walked me thru with a new code, now i have xp on there, so it will be whipped out along with anything else i have on there? also how do i format the drive?
 
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Is the drive dead now? If it is whatever was on there is more or less gone.

You can format the drive during the windows install process (or from windows itself in the management console if the drive you have now still works).
 
thanks

thanks for all the support but I priced doing it myself, a new drive @ $80 shipped for a 60-80gb, a new copy of xp from ebay $85 shipped, so @ $165 for an install of uncertain quality on a part that must perform, or: i went to a local owner/operator (no big guys) comp.repair shop, $85 for a new hitachi 5400 60gb drive, and $80 labor to install drive and a new copy of xp sp2. so again $165, but done by a pro with a warranty. i was all set to do it myself but i was unsure how to remove the internal battery and also i didn't feel like waiting for a few days for delivery, so i dropped it off this morning and will pick it up tomorrow morn.. is it common practice to ask him to give me the old drive? i just want to tear it apart and examine it, for curiousity's sake.
 
No, he should give you the old drive. Any good shop should give you your old stuff back unless you ask them to get rid of it for you.
 
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