Okay computer gurus!

[oumartin]

I have a dell studio 1535, had it one year and two months and the hard drive quits. Laptops are getting cheap enough that I will probably just end up replacing it within the month but just out of curiosity can you swap hard drives between laptops?

say I had a toshiba laptop that has a good hard drive. can it work in the dell?

[NormanPride]

Yeah, but you'd want to reformat or re-install Windows. It no likey playing on hardware it wasn't installed on.

[oumartin]

so if I put my toshiba hard drive in my dell I need to reformat it with the toshiba disks? cuz dell doesn't send out disks, the OS is on a partition on the HD.

[NormanPride]

Hmm... If toshiba sends out OS disks, then yeah. If it's just their random software crap I don't think it will help.

[oumartin]

well they are recovery disks with the OS on them. I will try that tonight if I can get the drives swapped. Both are now removed so it shouldn't be too tough.

Just my opinion here but Dell sucks.

I've had an acer laptop thats still running and it's nearly 4 years old. For all the grief acer gets it sure put these other two laptops to shame outliving them both combined.

[delhalew]

Its hard to blame Dell for the hard drive. Hard drives are the weak link on any computer. They can go anytime. This is why have developed solid state drives which are still very expensice compared to disk style drives.
On a laptop, the hard drive and RAM are the only things that are easily replaced. Although, its been my understanding that you need an appropriate drive. Getting a new one from dell or even a third party would be much cheaper than a new laptop.

[oumartin]

well since I have bought this dell it's been trouble. the ieee? ports haven't worked. It's a hardware conflict they refuse to fix. Same with my memory cards from my camera. To top it off the keyboard will just quit working right. the keys react slow and all you do is pull the battery for a minute or two and it works fine. again. Dell wouldn't do crap about it and they knew it was an issue on their studios.

I'm sure I'll opt for a new laptop within the month but I am gonna try my toshiba harddrive first.

[yermom]

Dell might send a recovery disk to you... i wouldn't know because i never use their OS installs anyway

you may be able to put the drive in and use it, but some drivers may need to be reloaded. it would help if they were both Intel, etc...

[oumartin]

I dont' think Dell is gonna send me anything after the tirade I went on.

[yermom]

and i used to like Dell, but i think HP and Lenovo have passed them. Dell's website is still better though

i'll still take an Apple over either of them, but i have been surprised how much i like my Asus netbook. i could see getting a bigger laptop from them at some point

[oumartin]

yeah, I did like the dell site. It walked me through and helped me figure out the possible issue. I just had to call them to verify what it was saying.



my buddy has an apple he wants to sell. Does pron look just as good on an apple? :D

[yermom]

better ;)

that's one of the things i like with Apple, not pr0n per se, but they cater to video/graphics people and their displays are top notch

[oumartin]

I'll have to ask him what he wants for his then. he's kinda old and aint hip like me and he doesn't like it.

[49r]

better ;)

that's one of the things i like with Apple, not pr0n per se, but they cater to video/graphics people and their displays are top notch

Problem is almost all innernet pr0n is in flash and Apple doesn't like flash too good.

But yeah, the hardware rulz from a quality standpoint. Plus, Apple customer service is especially good. Anything goes wrong with your mac, they'll fix it. Usually for free. If it's still under warranty, that is.

[yermom]

that's only recently though. now i guess Windows will offload some Flash processing to the GPU but Adobe and Apple aren't playing nice at the moment

[btk108]

My gateway laptop has been great.....Dell support sucketh majorly

[Veritas]

2.5" hard drives made by toshiba are ****.
FUJITSU FTW (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150380%2050001540&name=FUJITSU%20-%20Storage%2fHard%20Drive)

[soonerboomer93]

Problem is almost all innernet pr0n is in flash and Apple doesn't like flash too good.

But yeah, the hardware rulz from a quality standpoint. Plus, Apple customer service is especially good. Anything goes wrong with your mac, they'll fix it. Usually for free. If it's still under warranty, that is.

eh, there's not any difference in the quality between a high end laptop and an apple. most of it's the same components. The differences are in design and features. That's all personal preference.

I can't think of one customer service issue I had with Dell, and my systems are refurbished XPS machines. I even had to depot my laptop after dropping it at the airport, I was without it a whole 3 days.

[soonerboomer93]

I have a dell studio 1535, had it one year and two months and the hard drive quits. Laptops are getting cheap enough that I will probably just end up replacing it within the month but just out of curiosity can you swap hard drives between laptops?

say I had a toshiba laptop that has a good hard drive. can it work in the dell?

depends on the age. That dell should use a sata drive. The toshiba may use a sata or an ide drive. You'd have to compare the connections on the 2 drives.

[oumartin]

Okay I swapped HD and it does the exact same thing. I get the windows xp screen (instead of vista) and it just gives me the option to do normal or safe mode. Whichever I chose it goes back to the xp screen like I just turned it on. It flashes a blue screen in between for like a half second. This is the exact issue the dell HD gave me when I tried to boot the puter.

[Crucifax Autumn]

So at this point are you still sure it's the drive?

[oumartin]

when I ran the diagnostic test off the dell website(with the original HD) it came up with the hard drive error and thats when I called dell and they said I need to replace the hard drive. So, I go home and put in what was a good HD last time I used it(from my toshiba with bad motherboard). I tried to boot it up and it does the exact same thing the HD from dell did.

[oumartin]

so, I called dell support again this morning. I had convinced myself that it isn't the hard drive otherwise they both wouldn't be doing it. I call them back and they still tell me it's a hard drive issue and that I can buy one for 160.00. I tell them maybe, but right before the tech hangs up he whispers maybe you should try a reformat. Hmmm.

I make a couple other calls pricing drives and then put it all back together and did a reformat. Low and behold so far so good. It's all done and I've rebooted a few times. Only time will tell but as of right now all is right with it again.

[yermom]

something sounds really weird somewhere

and $160 is way too high

[oumartin]

yeah, local computer store would sell me a 200 gig for 80 bucks. just have to find a way to put OS on it. I will stick with this dell and just start looking for it's replacement.

[yermom]

500GB $65: http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/203984

assuming it's SATA

but anyway, if you are just surfing that's probably fine, but i would make sure you have a back up of any pr0n you don't have anywhere else ;)

but really, just surfing you don't even need a hard drive, an Ubuntu Live CD would get you online

[oumartin]

well I had pretty much everything backed up on two seperate externals. In case one of them takes a poo poo. But I did lose some good material :D

For no more than I do I don't need a top end computer but if I end up buying the new canon t2i I will definately need a huge drive to download all the HD movies I plan on shooting!

[49r]

Check the Dell support site for updated BIOS. Those can help with some pretty funky hardware issues, too...

[soonerboomer93]

500GB $65: http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/203984

assuming it's SATA

but anyway, if you are just surfing that's probably fine, but i would make sure you have a back up of any pr0n you don't have anywhere else ;)

but really, just surfing you don't even need a hard drive, an Ubuntu Live CD would get you online

5400 rpm, so that's a no go

[yermom]

ok, fine :P

it's more $$$ though. still way less than $160

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145275&cm_re=2.5._7200_500gb-_-22-145-275-_-Product

[oumartin]

so, I am a ratard, why does the rpm matter so much? how quickly it reads whats on the drive?

[yermom]

yeah

mostly an issue when you are opening programs on a laptop

if you really want to speed it up, you can go SSD, but you sacrifice a lot of space

[49r]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_delay

Spindle RPM == Average latency (ms)
4200 ======= 7.14
5400 ======= 5.55
7200 ======= 4.17
10000 ====== 3
15000 ====== 2

Honestly, I think the difference you gain in performance btw 5400 and 7200 in most instances is not worth the extra $$$. IMO, you get more benefit just by keeping your disk defragged. But, if you are looking for a laptop that will generate more heat or a hard drive that would be more likely to fail sooner, then by all means go for the 7200 RPM. :)