Momentus xt HD for new laptop?

[rockironwebb5150]

Hello, I am just about to buy my first laptop. It will be used for basic web and home use, and a lot of digital audio production. My budget is $1000, but of course I would like to spend less. I am considering buying an HP-DV7, pretty much all the specs satisfy what I want except the HD speed (5400). I have looked into the Momentus XT and am wondering how hard it would be to install and move everthing over to it? I am comfortable cracking open a desktop, and I am confident I can do the hardware install, I am just not so sure about the software end of things. I certainly don't want to ruin a brand new laptop.

 

[Traciatim]

Hello, I am just about to buy my first laptop. It will be used for basic web and home use, and a lot of digital audio production. My budget is $1000, but of course I would like to spend less. I am considering buying an HP-DV7, pretty much all the specs satisfy what I want except the HD speed (5400). I have looked into the Momentus XT and am wondering how hard it would be to install and move everthing over to it? I am comfortable cracking open a desktop, and I am confident I can do the hardware install, I am just not so sure about the software end of things. I certainly don't want to ruin a brand new laptop.

Most hard drives in laptops can be accessed through some easy mechanism like a single screw door (like batteries on kids toys) . . . The trouble spot will be moving data over as most laptops will only have room for 1 drive at a time.

Generally the solution to this is an external drive enclosure that will hold a 2.5" drive. They are usually really cheap. Then you just use imaging software like DriveImage XML (Free) to image the drive from the laptop to the new drive that's in the enclosure. When that's done you swap the drive in the laptop, put the old hard drive in the enclosure.

Now you have an external backup drive, and all of your data on the new drive in your Laptop.

 

[rockironwebb5150]

Most hard drives in laptops can be accessed through some easy mechanism like a single screw door (like batteries on kids toys) . . . The trouble spot will be moving data over as most laptops will only have room for 1 drive at a time.

Generally the solution to this is an external drive enclosure that will hold a 2.5" drive. They are usually really cheap. Then you just use imaging software like DriveImage XML (Free) to image the drive from the laptop to the new drive that's in the enclosure. When that's done you swap the drive in the laptop, put the old hard drive in the enclosure.

Now you have an external backup drive, and all of your data on the new drive in your Laptop.

Apparently the laptop that I am thinking about purchasing has a second hard drive bay, Would this make the process more complicated? Would I be able to install the momentus in the second bay and then "clone" it, and set is as my primary drive? The other thing would be, should I then remove or disable the 5400 RPM drive? Not sure if the two drives with different speed may complicate things down the road if I start storing files on it. I am mainly looking to get the performance benefits from the momentus xt. I typically save my music production projects on 2 separate external drives, just in case.

 

[geofelt]

Apparently the laptop that I am thinking about purchasing has a second hard drive bay, Would this make the process more complicated? Would I be able to install the momentus in the second bay and then "clone" it, and set is as my primary drive? The other thing would be, should I then remove or disable the 5400 RPM drive? Not sure if the two drives with different speed may complicate things down the road if I start storing files on it. I am mainly looking to get the performance benefits from the momentus xt. I typically save my music production projects on 2 separate external drives, just in case.

Actually, your task will be simpler.
You could just clone the old drive to the new and remove the old drive if you will not be using it.

Or, laptops may come with the software to generate recovery cd's. This would be a good way to test out the process.
Create the recovery cd's and remove the old hard drive, then try the recovery procedure.

Sometimes oem pc's, including laptops will come with hidden paqrtitions that may not be cloned properly.

 

[Traciatim]

Would I be able to install the momentus in the second bay and then "clone" it, and set is as my primary drive?

The other thing would be, should I then remove or disable the 5400 RPM drive?

Yeah, the second drive bay makes it easier, you can just clone the drive and set it to boot off of it and you should be good to go. Disabling the second drive won't help with performance, but you can use it as a storage drive for things you aren't actively working on, or a temp storage are so if you have 5 or 6 copies of things you are working on right now with different changes applied could be moved over.

You could even use syncing software just to move your important stuff over to the second drive each night just in case of accidental deletion or edits that can't be undone for easy rolling back. (Synctoy, Allway Sync... anything like those).

 

[rockironwebb5150]

Thanx for the help. I think I am going to go for it. I am having the same feelings I had before the first time I cracked open a desktop pc to fiddle around inside, the whole into the unknown. It all seems fairly straight forward. I pretty much got slammed for my question on a couple of different forums. About a week and a half ago I had ordered a Lenovo ideapad direct from lenovo, but I had a pretty horrible customer service issue before I even got it, so I cancelled. I guess to prevent fraud they do not ship to PO boxes, which is where my billing address is. In order to have it shipped to a different address I needed to have my bank approve my shipping address. My bank approved the transaction, but lenovo still insisted that the billing address had to match the shipping address, if I changed the billing address for this one transaction, I would have had to change the billing address of about 20 different things, and then lenovo held my $1000 for 7 days after the cancelled order. ...................................................
ANYWAY......................
I have never had issues with HP(nothing major anyway. This laptop with the xt upgrade will give me all of the specs I have been looking for(and more) and a big screen for audio editing, all for a bit less than $1000.
Thanx again,
One more question: will I need any additional items to do the install? cord,screws? I see some listed as kits with the usb thingy, but others are just the drive.

 

[RetiredChief]

Should be NO problem.
(1) Most newer laptopds do NOT come with the "recovery" disk. If you check the manual you will probablly see - "Make Your OWN. usally 3 -> 5 DVDs. make sure you do this first.
(2) Pop out the original HDD. Usally one or two screws holding the cover on. and probably 4 screws that hold the HDD in place. Hopefully, HP included the "holder" for a 2nd HDD, since you have two bays. (My Samsung FR711 came with single drive but two holders.
(3) Put the new drive into the same drive bay. Try out your NEWLY completed recovery DVDs. Boot to new HDD and check that all partitions have been install. probably will see up to 3 (use Windows Disk management to view drive as some partitions may be hidden from My computer).

Some tips:
A) Do NOT erase the orginial OS for at least a Month.
B) Your Old drive probaby has a "C"-drive (partition), a recovery Partition and a Sytem partition. These last two may be small and hidden from MyComputer. What I would do is "shrink the C-drive partion down to about 100 -> 110 Gigs and make a D-drive out of the now Unpartitioned space. Use this space for Your overflow/ or any files you want to place on the old drive. Then, at least for 1 -> 3 Months do NOT delete the orginial OS.

On the newly "cloned" HDD. Same-Same, shrink c drive down about 100 Gigs. This can be down from computer management. Create a D drive for all You data from the "left over space. Get ride of the Bloat ware that will be preload, install all your programs Check out for a week.
Every thing OK, then use Windows Bck-up to create an image of the C-drive. Can either place on a HDD (my preference a external HDD), or on DVDs. USE this to re-insall in future an not the "restore" disk that you made. This way all the programs you installed would be included and you would Not have to go thru and delete all the bloatware.

Since you have two HDD bays, a better option (from a Performance) stand point would be to buy either a 128 gig curcial M4, or Samsung 830 SSD.. SSDs run circles around HDD while althe time laughing!!. The HDD is probably close to a $100, the M4 can KNOW be found on sale for around $120->$140. Place your OS and programs on the SSD and all your data on a HDD in Bay 2. This is what I did with My Samsung RF-711 Laptop.

ADDED:
Kits, for laptop, generally means that it comes with software to clone HDD to the New drive. or
If for a desktop the kit will include a a 2 1/2" -> 3 1/2 in adaptor.
OEM is just a bare drive (and normally the mounting screws to mount drive to either a adaptor or a caddy).
For laptop and Mounting in 2nd Bay, you do not need any extra cables, in most cases the drive will Plug directly into a connector on the MB - No Cable required. No New screws should NOT be needed providing the Laptop comes with the caddy to mount the HDD (or SSD) in The screws for mounting the caddy (once HDD is pushed int connector) will either be inplace and you will need to remove, or in a small ziplock baggy.

 

[rockironwebb5150]

all good info. I will probably purchase this evening. I no where to come now for any questions, here are a couple more.
I will make recovery disc no matter what, but i'm wondering if maybe I should clone the stock drive to a 500GB seagate external that I already have, and then replace the stock HD with the new momentus drive as "primary"(only)? I don't see myself needing 1.5 TB of storage. I just watch an installation video on adding an HD to second drive bay of the laptop I'm buying and seems that I would need a pretty specific cable to use the second bay(http://www.newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=379)
Thinking even further down the line, if I install the momentus in the first HD bay, I would have the second HD bay available to possibly add a SSD in the future.

 

[RetiredChief]

Myself I'd just use windows Backup (located in control panel and create a image of your HDD on the Backup Usb HDD. If they did not provide a "reall" windows 7 installation disk, no problem. When windows has completed writing the Image to the USB drive, it will prompt you to create a "restore/repair" bootable DVD. With this DVD you can restore this image file to a HDD quickly and it will boot to exactly as to when the image was created.

Take care and above all - ENJOY

 

[rockironwebb5150]

sounds good. I will purchase this evening and return with progress/results/issues!! hopefully no issues.

 

[rockironwebb5150]

Success!!!! very easy install. Took about 2 hours from the time I started making recovery discs. Didn't really do much before testing, but so far, start up time is faster by about 36 seconds! stock dive took about a minute, momentus xt, from shut down completely to complete loaded desktop is 24 seconds. I'll stay in touch. Thanx so much for the help.

 

[rockironwebb5150]

Best answer selected by rockironwebb5150.