Once you have the new drive and you've backed up all your data, it's time to remove the old one. You'll need to look for 2.5-inch drives and if you want the best speed, you should buy a 7200rpm drive, but these are currently only available on the SATA interface. Have a look at price comparison sites such as to get the best price on a new hard drive. Your laptop manual should have this information, but if not you can use a tool such as Belarc Advisor which analyses your system and will tell you the make, model, type and capacity of your existing hard drive. Two of the best imaging programs are Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image Home.īefore buying your new hard drive, you need to establish whether your existing hard drive uses an IDE or SATA interface. Also locate the installation discs and serial numbers for any other software you need.Īn even easier way to migrate to a new hard drive is to create a full back-up image of your existing hard drive and simply reinstall it to the new drive. You will also need a drivers disc or, if you don't have one, find and download all the drivers you need for your laptop's hardware, such as chipset, graphics, etc.
Depending on whether you installed Windows yourself, or it came preinstalled, you will need your Windows install CD, or System Recovery disc, along with your Windows Product Key. Once your data is safely stored, you need to make sure you have everything else you need.
