What is largest hard drive upgrade for HP Pavillion laptop?

[ajayjohn]

We have an HP Pavilion Entertainment Laptop DV5, P/N NF783UA##ABA, S/N CNF8414Q7B. The original hard drive is failing and 250-260gb. HP advises to use 320GB as replacement but we would like to know if we can go larger. Some folks are posting that the HP recovery disk no longer works after attempts at upgrades to a larger (than 320GB) disk but could it be due to Microsoft Licensing (disk sees as "new" computer and license is cpu specific?

If so, I would buy a new Win 7 license and be over with it.

 

[Hawkeye22]

It's a fairly new machine. I don't see why the bios shouldn't support up to 2TB drives. I don't know about the recovery disk, but I don't see why you shouldn't be able to just clone the drive to a bigger one. I cloned my HP desktop drive to another one with no problem, recovery partition and all.

 

[ajayjohn]

Its that I've read quite a few references about the Bios's in the HP laptops being very limiting, your desktop is likely a different animal in this respect. Planned obsolesence perhaps; to make you buy a new laptop when you want something bigger.

The drive(s) only run $80-150 but don't want one that won't work in it and want it to be the biggest I can put in there for now.

 

[Hawkeye22]

I understand your concerns. I can't assure you 100% about supporting drives up to 2TB, but bios's have been restricted to 2TB for quite some time due to MBR partitioning. I would be very surprised if it couldn't handle a drive that large other than I don't think drive manufactures make 2.5" drives that large yet.

Hopefully someone can give you a more definitive answer. Good luck to you.

 

[davidtennantsteeth]

I know this is old, but I'm going to post an answer for anyone else who was looking like me. The Pavilion dv7 documentation clearly says the system only supports up to 1TB on a single drive. I have 2 TB drive with data on it. When I attached it via usb bridge to my computer, it said I needed to format the drive. When I used Hirem's rescue CD to analyze the drive, it couldn't recognize the whole cylinder.

So, the Pavilion dv7 only see's up to 1TB on a single drive.

 

[stevenfoxhound]

Your problem have nothing to concern with your HP dv7, there is no limition with external HDD. I have an older than yours dv2000 running Win 7 with a brand new 500 GB internal and a 3TB USB external and no worries.

May be there is something wrong with your OS or with your external HDD, try to check your USB HDD on an other PC.

 

[Victor Rosez]

Your problem have nothing to concern with your HP dv7, there is no limition with external HDD. I have an older than yours dv2000 running Win 7 with a brand new 500 GB internal and a 3TB USB external and no worries.

May be there is something wrong with your OS or with your external HDD, try to check your USB HDD on an other PC.

Indeed I use an internal 1TB on my dv7 and 3TB external USB HDD since 2years without any problem.