upgrading HD, old one inro ext case?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I purposely bought the lowest (read: cheapest) level of i5150, figuring
that it's most likely cheaper to upgrade the memory and disk space
myself. I havent received the computer from Dell yet, I am just
preparing myself. This is my first PC (my experience has been with
Macs), so I have a few questions;

To upgrade the HDD: I remove the original HDD, and replace it, most
likely with an Hitachi 7K60, I format it and do a clean install of Win
XP. Does the notebook come with all of the disks necessary to do a
clean install of XP? Is there a step-by step somewhere?

I then take the original HDD and put it in an external firewire
enclosure, do I need to reformat this drive? Is there any preparation,
software wise that needs to be done? Do I need to change the
slave/master jumpers? Any recommendations for troublefree, cheap enclosures?

Is all of this information available in an
"upgrade-your-HDD-and-put-the-old one-in-an-external-enclosure for
dummies" web site, or other resource? As I said I am new to mucking
around inside PC's and am spending alot of time rooting around online
trying to line up as much info as possible. Any references to web sites
would be greatly appreciatd.

TIA
Jim

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Jim,

It's really easy on a laptop drive. For example, I use this case:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=142414

Happens to be USB2, which is just fine (assuming the 5150 supports USB2).

Pull the drive, pop it in the external case, plug it into the USB port.

That's it. You can delete all the files or reformat, whatever you prefer.

Tom
"jim c" <ex99125b@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:Qc5Sc.232475$a24.411@attbi_s03...
> I purposely bought the lowest (read: cheapest) level of i5150, figuring
> that it's most likely cheaper to upgrade the memory and disk space
> myself. I havent received the computer from Dell yet, I am just
> preparing myself. This is my first PC (my experience has been with
> Macs), so I have a few questions;
>
> To upgrade the HDD: I remove the original HDD, and replace it, most
> likely with an Hitachi 7K60, I format it and do a clean install of Win
> XP. Does the notebook come with all of the disks necessary to do a
> clean install of XP? Is there a step-by step somewhere?
>
> I then take the original HDD and put it in an external firewire
> enclosure, do I need to reformat this drive? Is there any preparation,
> software wise that needs to be done? Do I need to change the
> slave/master jumpers? Any recommendations for troublefree, cheap
enclosures?
>
> Is all of this information available in an
> "upgrade-your-HDD-and-put-the-old one-in-an-external-enclosure for
> dummies" web site, or other resource? As I said I am new to mucking
> around inside PC's and am spending alot of time rooting around online
> trying to line up as much info as possible. Any references to web sites
> would be greatly appreciatd.
>
> TIA
> Jim