(gateway laptop) Looking for a new internal HD

[horrorific]

Some time ago I made a thread here about wanting to install a second OS (split my HD) but ended up not having to go to that length, thanks to dwellman I managed to successfully reinstall vista. For about 2 hours. I had successfully installed a trial version of vista and was in the process of upgrading, I walk out of the room for 30 minutes to eat...and I come back to a blue screen telling me to undo any new hardware changes. After that crash I could no longer boot into the trial vista and things started going down hill from there.

Now whenever I try to repeat the process I keep getting this "no disk" or "hard disk not found" error. Basically, one minute I can see the partitions on the HD and try to install an OS on the formatted one...but about 10-15% through the procedure I get an error saying that it can't detect the hard disk (drive or driver, one of the three), and now even though I can see both partitions (main and recovery, recovery came with the laptop) and try to install an OS on the main...I get the error "can't find drive volume".

So, until someone can tell me otherwise, I believe this is a hardware problem. And so I am now shopping for a new HD for my laptop.

This is my current one's specs:
=================================================================
Feature Description
Manufacturer Fujitsu
Model MHV2100BH
Interface SATA
Capacity (GB) 100
Sector size (bytes) 512
Data buffer (MB) 8
Rotational speed (rpm) 5,400
Latency (average ms) 5.56 milliseconds
Maximum interface transfer rate (MB/sec) 150 MB per second Ultra ATA
66.6 MB per second UDMA mode 4
Seek time milliseconds (ms) Average: 12 ms Read, 14 ms Write
Track to track: 1.5 ms
Full stroke: 22 ms
Error rate (non-recoverable) 1 per 1013 bits read
Load/unload cycle 600,000 cycles
Power requirement 5 V ±0.5%
Startup power (maximum peak) 1.0 A maximum
Read power (average) 1.9 W (typical)
Write power (average) 1.9 W (typical)
Active idle power (average) 0.85 W (typical)
Sleep power 0.6 W (typical)
Ambient temperature 5 to 55 degrees C (operating)
-40 to 65 degrees C (non-operating)
Relative humidity (non-condensing) 8 to 90% RH (non-condensing) (operating)
5 to 95% RH (non-condensing) (non-operating)
Maximum wet bulb (non-condensing) 29 degrees C (operating)
40 degrees C (non-operating)
Shock (half sine wave) 2,940 m/s2 (300 G) 2 ms (operating)
8,820 m/s2 (900 G) 1 ms / 1,176 m/s2 (120 G) 11 ms (non-operating)
Vibration 9.8 m/s2 (1.0 G) (5 to 500 Hz) (operating)
49 m/s2 (5.0 G) (5 to 500 Hz) (non-operating)
Acoustics (A-Weighted Sound Power (Bels)) Idle (typical) 34 dBA typical / 2.8 bels
Height (mm) 9.5
Width (mm) 70
Depth (mm) 100
Weight (grams) 101
=================================================================

So, does anyone know a reliable source for cheap internal laptop HDs, that my laptop can use? Lol.


p.s. while randomly poking around common shopping websites I found a "Easy-Plug Easy-Go drive upgrade", can someone explain what these are and how they're different from normal (laptop) hard drives?

 

[frenchsquared]

I just put this one in my Gateway M-6824
and I have a triple boot system.

http/www.provantage.com/hitachi-0a57527~7HTCD0EC.htm

 

[horrorific]

Its a great HD, but its about double of what my budget is >_<

 

[dwellman]

What's your budget?

I've personally gone with Seagate ever since their 5 year warranty on all notebook drives (now on all drives). Any 2.5 inch SATA laptop / notebook drive will do. Did imention Segate has a 5 year warranty?

You might as well spring for a 2.5 inch enclosure for that drive just in case it still works. If not, go to Fujitsu's web site and see if the drive still isn't covered under the manufacturer warranty (probably not, but always worth checking). Actually, do that anyway. You'll need the drive's model number and the serial number.

Do not fear removing a laptop hard drive. It's generally no more difficult than taking out the battery (except you have to remove a screw or two)

 

[horrorific]

My budget is around $50-60.

And I already removed it a few times, the first was in a feeble attempt to double check if its connected correctly, the other to check model # so I could look up its specs in the gateway site.

As for warranties, I haven't thought about it, since my laptop's warrenty is expired I stopped thinking about its components' warranties. Though, It can't hurt to check either way

edit; lol, I don't think they keep track of individual part warranties, just whole units.

p.s I found a tiny hole that has "do not cover" near it...is that anything like a reset?

 

[dwellman]

Oh no no no. That hole is for air pressure equilization.

EDIT: Will this work for you budget-wise? http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10007495&prodlist=froogle

 

[horrorific]

Yup, that'll work. Thank you

 

[horrorific]

Sorry to revive this thread, originally I was going to buy the seagate momentous...but then I found a seagate barracuda* which has about 2x the storage and buffer size, higher rotation and roughly the same price. Although I understand that there are times like this, when buying from auction type sites, will have different prices...but I've also noticed this a lot while just browsing. I generally see drives that are 2 or 3 times better having a roughly equal or lower price than the drives that seem to be worse. Can anyone explain the reason behind this? Is there a quality that simply makes a drive better regardless of rotation, size, or buffer?


http/stores.tomshardware.com/search_techspecs_full.php/masterid=19777096/st=product_tab

 

[dwellman]

No! This is a desktop drive. The 2.5 is a misprint / typo:

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2d1099f4fa74c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

Momentus IS the laptop "brand". Barracuda is the desktop "brand".

 

[horrorific]

*facepalm* Well, that explains it. Thanks :lol: