# replacing laptop hardrive



## mts (8 Jul 2009)

The hard drive in my Dell laptop has failed and I need to replace it. Tech support have advised me that if I buy a new hard drive online rather than from Dell that I may not be able to load Windows using the cd that came with the laptop. 

Does anyone have any experience of this? Thanks.


----------



## AlbacoreA (8 Jul 2009)

Sounds like technobabble to me. Ask them why and get the specifics. 

Theres only two issues AFAIK.
1. You don't have the CD and Windows is on a hidden partition on the HD. 
2. Media Center is also on a hidden partition on the HD and a pain to set up. 

Personally I don't use MediaCenter and once I had the Dell CD I never a problem. But I'd check with support what the heck they are babbling on about.


----------



## nmesisca (8 Jul 2009)

Unless the data of the BIOS is held in a partition on the original hard drive and the OS wont install without access to it.
Ring CS and ask for clarifications.


----------



## AlbacoreA (8 Jul 2009)

nmesisca said:


> Unless the data of the BIOS is held in a partition on the original hard drive and the OS wont install without access to it.
> Ring CS and ask for clarifications.


 
Er what? Is that technically possible? Never heard of it.


----------



## nmesisca (8 Jul 2009)

Sure it is. Though I havent seen it on new machines.


----------



## AlbacoreA (8 Jul 2009)

The BIOS is firmware. 
How can it be on the HD? 
What would even be the point? 
Can you give an example from one you've seen?


----------



## nmesisca (8 Jul 2009)

the BIOS is firmware, the data the BIOS is processing can be held in firmware too, or on any other media. old machines (laptops servers, ibm compaq dell and hp especially) have used this method in the past to save data on hidden partitions.
as i said i havent seen it done on new machines but i have been in the business for almost 20 years.


----------



## AlbacoreA (8 Jul 2009)

Can you give an example of something thats part of the bios that would be held on the HD?

I have never seen it, even going back to 286/386's or Apple 68020, Dec Alpha, etc.


----------



## nmesisca (8 Jul 2009)

drive configuration, raid setup if any, and definitely diagnostics. keep in mind that big names machines have generally a limited functionality firmware that exposes only the necessary settings to the user.
I think the compaq armada 1500 had that too. compaq servers (old proliant) as well.


Armada 7400 too.


----------



## bullworth (8 Jul 2009)

I have a desktop with the Winows XP Dvd and that gives me no trouble if I want to replace my hard drive but my laptop has an OEM installation with a reset disk and this worries me if I ever had a problem. What can someone do about replacing a hard drive when the operating system is on  a hidden partition to ensure they have the legal copy of windows whch they originally have paid for ? It does not seem straightforward.


----------



## nmesisca (8 Jul 2009)

you could examine the original hard drive with partition magic to see if that partition is there in the first place. if it is you could try and mirror the same partition on the newer drive (with ghost or similar). once its mirrored the installation via the OEM disk should go through.


----------



## AlbacoreA (8 Jul 2009)

nmesisca said:


> drive configuration, raid setup if any, and definitely diagnostics. keep in mind that big names machines have generally a limited functionality firmware that exposes only the necessary settings to the user.
> I think the compaq armada 1500 had that too. compaq servers (old proliant) as well.
> 
> 
> Armada 7400 too.


 
Er, how can it read the HD if the info/config to read the HD is on the HD.


----------



## onq (8 Jul 2009)

nmesisca said:


> you could examine the original hard drive with partition magic to see if that partition is there in the first place. if it is you could try and mirror the same partition on the newer drive (with ghost or similar). once its mirrored the installation via the OEM disk should go through.



That sounds like what happened to mine last summer.
I gave the old drive to a company and the transferred an exact image of the data to the new drive.
I then restarted and luckily the failed hard drive hadn't corrupted the original reinstallation partition - this is an IBM Thinkpad standard installation.

I reinstalled from the hidden partition and so far so good - nearly a year on.
One unusual thing I noted.
I was running out of space on the old 60Gb HD and an 80Gb HD was the smallest available so we fitted that.
When the IBM installer formatted the drive, it did it in such a way that not only was it FAT 32 Win2K [for legacy applications is wasn't NTFS] but it also somehow "made it" 60Gb - magic.

I was told that there is a way to do this at sector level on the drive, so that when say, drives of 100Gb or 80Gb are the only ones available, the spec is still the same.
Cannot see the point myself, but I'm sure its a pricing and marketing thing.

For What Its Worth.



ONQ


----------



## nmesisca (8 Jul 2009)

AlbacoreA said:


> Er, how can it read the HD if the info/config to read the HD is on the HD.


 

the firmware looks for the partition on the first available fixed drive.


----------



## AlbacoreA (8 Jul 2009)

How did you get the data off a failed drive?


----------



## nmesisca (8 Jul 2009)

onq said:


> That sounds like what happened to mine last summer.
> I gave the old drive to a company and the transferred an exact image of the data to the new drive.
> I then restarted and luckily the failed hard drive hadn't corrupted the original reinstallation partition - this is an IBM Thinkpad standard installation.
> 
> ...


 
yeah those applications always default on the most compatible option (FAT or FAT32 depending on age of the machine). The reason why you still had 60GB even though the new drive was 80GB is because the tool you used to format the drive was made specifically for those model PCs, which had only the 60GB hard drives as spares.
You can defintely reach the wanted result (80GB+) but you'd have to have a look at the original config first and try a couple times.
Alternatively, Im sure someone else has done it and has posted on the internet at some stage.


----------



## AlbacoreA (8 Jul 2009)

nmesisca said:


> the firmware looks for the partition on the first available fixed drive.


 
But I won't see any drive if the config isn't in the firmware. 
It must be something else. Software raid and/or boot parition/MBR/VBR or this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_Boot_Record
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS_parameter_block

However I can't see how any of these would have any impact if you have the OS on a CD.

I was just curious, because I've never seen it, and can't understand how it would work.


----------



## nmesisca (8 Jul 2009)

AlbacoreA said:


> But I won't see any drive if the config isn't in the firmware.
> It must be something else. Software raid and/or boot parition/MBR/VBR or this...
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_Boot_Record
> ...


 
any hard drive/cd/dvd etc that you install on a PC loads a part of its firmware in a specific area of memory as soon as you turn on the PC. (I think i remember the first hard drive was always at C0800.. I think) so those type of firmwares always look at that address.
boot records MBRs etc have not much to do with the bios partition as they are read only after the bios partition has been accessed.


----------



## AlbacoreA (8 Jul 2009)

nmesisca said:


> any hard drive/cd/dvd etc that you install on a PC loads a part of its firmware in a specific area of memory as soon as you turn on the PC. (I think i remember the first hard drive was always at C0800.. I think) so those type of firmwares always look at that address.
> boot records MBRs etc have not much to do with the bios partition as they are read only after the bios partition has been accessed.


 
Do you have a link to that. I'd like to read about it.


----------



## nmesisca (8 Jul 2009)

AlbacoreA said:


> Do you have a link to that. I'd like to read about it.


 

I will try and find something for you. need a bit of time tho..


OK i kinda found something.. have a look at this :
[broken link removed]
I know it does not really answer your question but should give you a hint on the technology of the time.
Will give more links as soon as I can


----------



## mts (8 Jul 2009)

bullworth said:


> I have a desktop with the Winows XP Dvd and that gives me no trouble if I want to replace my hard drive but my laptop has an OEM installation with a reset disk and this worries me if I ever had a problem. What can someone do about replacing a hard drive when the operating system is on a hidden partition to ensure they have the legal copy of windows whch they originally have paid for ? It does not seem straightforward.


 
I am completely lost on this thread. The tech support person mentioned an OEM installation so does that mean that the Windows disk I have is useless for a new hard drive?


----------



## onq (8 Jul 2009)

AlbacoreA said:


> How did you get the data off a failed drive?



I paid for it to be done by a specialist firm on the north side of Dublin.
The drive was so far gone PC Peripherals in Sandyford couldn't copy it.
I had used the family PC for about a week, but I still needed a final solution.
I was running my entire office from my laptop - extended downtime wasn't an option
Sending the HD to the UK was going to cost me thousands and take well over a week by all accounts.

I looked up firms who did hard drive recovery and chose; -

Critical Data Services
Unit 719
Northwest Business Park
Ballycoolin
Dublin 15
LoCall: 1890 237 100
t: +353 (0)1 861 2280
f: +353 (0)1 507 8217
e: mailto:ciaran@criticaldata.ie 
w: www.criticaldata.ie

I got a much better price from CDS than the UK options.
It took less than a week and they sourced and fitted the new HD.
They also copied the retrieved data onto an external HD.
I would have preferred to pay less, but they did the business.
They were very professional and kept me well-informed at all times.

HTH

ONQ


----------



## onq (8 Jul 2009)

nmesisca said:


> yeah those applications always default on the most compatible option (FAT or FAT32 depending on age of the machine). The reason why you still had 60GB even though the new drive was 80GB is because the tool you used to format the drive was made specifically for those model PCs, which had only the 60GB hard drives as spares.
> You can defintely reach the wanted result (80GB+) but you'd have to have a look at the original config first and try a couple times.
> Alternatively, Im sure someone else has done it and has posted on the internet at some stage.



<nods>

I specified the FAT 32 formatting when ordering for two reasons:
(i) to allow me to run legacy applications I had used on my Windows 95 OSR2 PC, and
(ii) to ensure total deletion of sensitive client data without any alternative data streams in NTFS compromising that solution.
Worked well, the only "ghost" files and folder names that were restored by the bit-by-bit data retrieval were those I hadn't specifically wiped.

In relation to achieving the total capacity, there is a bit of a Catch-22 according to CDS.
There is a tool you can use, but it doesn't seem to be usable from a running hard drive.
It has to operate at very low level on the heads and boot sectors.
[I'm now well beyond my level of expertise, but this is how I understand it]

It seems the only way to do it is run it from another HD running as primary boot.
The original master is run as secondary or slave [the laptop can support two HDs].
That way the OS isn't formatting itself as it works, if I have this right.

No one could say whether or not this was going to result in data loss.
More importantly I had already lost a few weeks of uptime.
I left it and bought the external HD backup.
It uses the Firewire 400 port on the IBM.
It is also compatible with Win2K SP4, USB II and the FAT 32 filesystems.
Its a Western Digital MyBook if anyone's interested.

FWIW

ONQ.


----------



## nmesisca (9 Jul 2009)

mts said:


> I am completely lost on this thread. The tech support person mentioned an OEM installation so does that mean that the Windows disk I have is useless for a new hard drive?


 

most likely it wont, but again you should first have a look at the partition table of the hard drive to understand if there really is a hidden partition used for bios. if there isnt then you have a chance of it to work.

the way OEM winxp disks work is by using SLP to 'read' the bios of the PC and 'validate' that the specific machine is allowed to run it.
if this is the case tho, SLP is only implemented on the firmware itself and wouldnt work on an older bios partition.

hope this helps


----------



## AlbacoreA (9 Jul 2009)

nmesisca said:


> I will try and find something for you. need a bit of time tho..
> 
> 
> OK i kinda found something.. have a look at this :
> ...


 
Thats talking about the firmware on the HD controller. Not that its on the HD itself. 

Even if what your talking about is possible. I don't think any of this is relevant to a computer built in the last decade. I would bet money that the OP doesn't have to worry about any of that.

All the OEM disks do is, if its a Dell disk check that its a Dell computer. In rare cases it will check that its a Specific Dell model.


----------



## AlbacoreA (9 Jul 2009)

You guys are really making something so simple as making a cup of tea sound like its climbing everest. Swap the disk for a new one. Takes 5 mins. Try installing from the OEM disk. Either it works or it doesn't you'll know in another 5/10 mins. If it doesn't work no problem. Simply put the old drive back and no harm done. Its a no brainer. If your near D.4/15 drop me a PM and I'll do it for you over a coffee. I have spare drives you could test with.


----------



## nmesisca (9 Jul 2009)

AlbacoreA said:


> Thats talking about the firmware on the HD controller. Not that its on the HD itself.
> 
> Even if what your talking about is possible. I don't think any of this is relevant to a computer built in the last decade. I would bet money that the OP doesn't have to worry about any of that.
> 
> All the OEM disks do is, if its a Dell disk check that its a Dell computer. In rare cases it will check that its a Specific Dell model.


 

dude.. whatever you say.


----------



## AlbacoreA (9 Jul 2009)

nmesisca said:


> dude.. whatever you say.


 
I'm still interesting in finding out what your talking about. I just can't find anything about it. So if you find anything please give a link.


----------



## mts (9 Jul 2009)

Thanks everone for your replies. 

I will get a new hard drive and and try and install Windows from the OEM disk and hopefully it will work. If it doesn't,AlbacoreA I will shout you a coffee 

Now, another question. I know I need a SATA hard drive but how do I know if it is 2.5 or 3.5?


----------



## AlbacoreA (9 Jul 2009)

Only 2.5 fit in a laptop. You might need some very small philip screwdrivers. So just have them handy too.


----------



## mts (13 Jul 2009)

Thanks for your help. I successfully installed the new hard drive and installed windows with no problems.


----------



## AlbacoreA (14 Jul 2009)

Nice1

Support lines ha! Never trust them. 

Drill a few holes through the old drive  before dumping it.


----------

