Today I opened up the laptop and took out the hard drive. There seems to be something loose in there. Could it be the arm that reads the data on the hard drive's platters? I didn't shake it, but just turned it over and heard a little moving piece in there. Any hard drive testing programs out there that I can use?

This makes me ask another question. Are all laptop hard drives the same? I'm planning on getting another one for this laptop if I can. This laptop has a 2.0 GHz processor with 768MB RAM (added 512MB myself). Any limit on the max. HDD space I can get for it?

Thanks.

If it is a brand laptop, you should be able to find the type of motherboard. Usually Laptop HDD are 2.5" and run at 5400RPM (please don't take my word for it, I am by no means an expert, I just looked into upgrading an ancient laptop once.)
The main thing is, sometimes upgrading a laptop's HDD costs more than buying an external hard drive, which could prove to be handier even in some cases.

My suggestion is find the type of motherboard, and if you can, all specifics on its current hard drive.

In my experience with laptops (1 living, 2 dead) thre hardrives sometimes click because the arm moves when you move the drive, they are not rigidly held in place sometimes without power flowing through them to prevent damage from accidental bumps in bags and whatnot. However, it could very well be a chip in a plate or a separated arm. If you want a new drive, simply make sure that it is the same size and that they share the same type of connection. If the laptop has a 2.0GHz processor, it should be new enough to handle any speed HDD, most common speeds being 4800, 5400 and 7200(rare). If you are in doubt, go with 4800 as anything capable of 5400 or 7200 should handle 4800, but that is up to the BIOS really.

~Viz

Hope that "loose" sounding part inside is normal like you said

I'm sure an external will be a cheaper solution as I have 3 of these already (use external enclosures on my IDE hard drives ), but I want to get a bigger HDD for this laptop so I don't need to constantly move my data to the external when it's full. I install many test programs and also have other multimedia files on it...

The HDD I have is a 30 GB Toshiba (MK3017GAP). Thinking about getting a 80GB HDD...

I did a search and found conflicting information. One site mentions this Toshiba HDD as having 7200 RPM, but another site says it's 4200 RPM. Which is correct? My laptop fan spins a lot, so I'm thinking it may be 7200 RPM but the speed the data is transferred, it's steering towards 4200 RPM land LOL.

What model laptop is it? That could help me narrow down the specifics and find some probable good replacements for you.

~Viz

P.S. I found this website which has links to various pages on your HD. Your HD has a size of 2.5 inches with a rotational speed of 4200RPM. It is compatible with ATA types 2 through 5 so if you get another 4200RPM drvie that is compatible with those forms of ATa you should be fine. The website I provided has detailed specs and instructions which will have all the info you will need for a replacement. And it is straight from Toshiba themselves, so it should be accurate.

This post has been edited by vizskywalker: Mar 21 2006, 03:30 AM

It's one of those non-popular name brands I got a few years ago...It's a Prostar 6194 like the one shown here. It's not the same specs as that one though (probably upgraded to current technology trends).

Yeah, so reseatrching old versions of that quiclkly mixed with what I found out recently led me to the same conclusions. It is a 4200rpm drive, with ATA 2 through 5 capability. SO just get any new HD with those specs, (probably ATA 3 or 4 HD will be old enough to work, 5 might) and 4200 rpm drives will be fine.

~Viz

Just for your information...7200 rpm is very rare among laptop hard disks and a pain to get and cost a bomb. Mine is a Hitachi one with a 7200 rpm and it costs a bomb compared to the 5400 rpm ones but I'm the kind of person who wants the best. I sincerely doubt your Toshiba one was a 7200 rpm.

Its performance boosts are not bad but probably not worth the price difference between 5400 to 7200. Here is a review with some performance comparisons between different speed laptop hard drives. http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/hitachi_tra...GB_7200rpm.html

I doubt you should have problems getting a 5400 rpm one for your computer. The price difference from a 4200 to 5400 is also not large. Go for a 5400 instead of a 4200 rpm hard disk, there shouldn't be any compatibility issues. In fact, the 7200 rpm one in my notebook was upgraded from a 4200 rpm and it works like a dream in my 4 year old notebook pc.

Btw weaponstar, your fan spinning a lot has very little to do with your hard disk speed. It just means your overall heat generation from your pc (processor and graphics cards being the biggest culprits) is high and your fan has to work hard to keep things cool. Hard disks don't generate much heat and faster speeds generate negligible additional amounts of heat. The rpm listed for the hard disks is the rotational speed of the disks inside the hard drive and only can be tested via benchmark tests.

Go for a 5400 rpm. You'll notice a modest improvement in load times with little additional cost. I think the price difference is worth the performance boost unless your pc is a tortoise as it is already.

PS: loose parts in a HD is never good...Depends what kind of sound you're hearing. If you don't hear anything really out of place, it should be fine as yes sometimes the arm is a bit loose and makes a slight sound. As long as you don't hear a rattling sound like things flying all over your place in your hard disk.

Thanks for the additional info on this roggle. I still haven't decided to get one yet or not. I will compare the prices with the 7200 RPM drives and the 4200 ones to see if it's worth the upgrade.

The fan spinning is a moderate annoyance...but I guess I'll have to deal with it until I get a new laptop. The weird thing is that sometimes when the fan spins, I can hear that abnormal spinning sound. Seems like it might be spinning too fast...I backup my data frequently, so this shouldn't be a big problem. If it breaks down on me, I'm sure to get the 5400RPM drive at least...and a bump in the hard drive size too

I have to semi-agree with roggle. 7200rpm is not that rare, especially depending on who your manufacturer is. For higher storage though, it is. I saw only one hard drvie for laptops with 7200 rom greaer than 100GB, and it was very expensive. And weapon, make sure you get at least 5400, 480 is a little slow, and unless you plan on accessing about 1GB of data at a time, it probably isn't worth the extracost for a 7200rpm drive, especially if it means you can get a drive with more storage.

~Viz