Solved! Upgrade hard drive to SDD

[mstevenson]

I have an Acer Aspire V3-731 laptop with an Intel B960 processor (2.2 GHz 2MB L3 cache), a 6 GB DDR3 memory, and a 500GB HDD which has failed. I want to replace it with a 1TB SDD drive. Can this be done?

 

[USAFRet]

I have an Acer Aspire V3-731 laptop with an Intel B960 processor (2.2 GHz 2MB L3 cache), a 6 GB DDR3 memory, and a 500GB HDD which has failed. I want to replace it with a 1TB SDD drive. Can this be done?

Yes. Any SATA III SSD should work.
But now that the HDD has apparently failed, you'll have to do a whole new OS install.

Which OS is this?

 

[mstevenson]

WINDOWS 10. I have been able to save most of what was/is on the failing hard drive, thanks to Hiren!

 

[geofelt]

Certainly, you can replace the HDD with a 2.5" sata drive.
If the old HDD is no longer able to boot into windows, you are going to need to do a new windows install.
There are youtube videos on how to do the mechanical drive replacement.
Download all the needed drivers directly from acer for the unit.
There will be unique keyboard and display drivers.

 

[captaincharisma]

as a warning SSD drives can be expensive and not all of them have the same performance.

 

[mstevenson]

Thank you both for your answers!! It will be about a week before I start but I will post my progress.

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you both for your answers!! It will be about a week before I start but I will post my progress.

How to do a CLEAN installation of Windows 10

 

[mstevenson]

Thank you also USAFRet!

 

[geofelt]

Thank you both for your answers!! It will be about a week before I start but I will post my progress.

How to do a CLEAN installation of Windows 10

I just read the excellent tutorial by darkbreeze.
I bookmarked it for future reference.
One thing I would like to have him add to it is the reason why having a second drive present is bad.
Not that it will not work, but windows will put hidden recovery info on that drive making it all but impossible to ever boot. without that drive present.
If you agree and have the means to contact darkbreeze you might do so.

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you both for your answers!! It will be about a week before I start but I will post my progress.

How to do a CLEAN installation of Windows 10

I just read the excellent tutorial by darkbreeze.
I bookmarked it for future reference.
One thing I would like to have him add to it is the reason why having a second drive present is bad.
Not that it will not work, but windows will put hidden recovery info on that drive making it all but impossible to ever boot. without that drive present.
If you agree and have the means to contact darkbreeze you might do so.

Noted.
I'll ping him on that.