How to change the hard drive to your laptop

[G.O.G]

1: Check Equipment Specifications
Before we even buy anything, the first thing we must do is check the specifications of your equipment. This is very important since, although you are going to replace your existing unit, you should check the compatibility of the models that you can use.

To do this you must search the internet for the technical characteristics of your laptop, and look carefully at the storage section. This way you will know the units that it supports, although not in all cases it is easy to find our model, even looking at different web pages. This is not infallible, and there will be times when another solution will have to be found.

You have several options. The first would be access to disk management. You can do it in windows 10 by pressing the right button on the start icon in the lower left corner of the desktop. In this place you can see how different partitions exist, but in this case we only have one unit.

To check the actual availability of our equipment, we can access the bios. In each model is different, but usually is accessed by pressing during the startup delete, F8 or F12. These are the most common, although there are others, just pay attention at the start.

Once inside, the normal thing is that in the default tab you can see all the connected devices, and the available slots. Remember that if you have an integrated DVD drive, it will also appear as a SATA drive. In case we need to make sure, it is best to open the lid of the disks, and so check directly that is what we have in our equipment and that we can install.

2: Which model to choose
The normal thing is to change the disk of your laptop for a new one. The reasons may be several. On one hand it may be simply because you want to expand the storage of the laptop. Another reason is that your unit may present appreciable degradation or present too many defective sectors, so it needs a replacement. There is also the possibility of mounting an SSD on the laptop, with the spectacular performance improvement that this entails.

If you are going to change the hard disk of your laptop for an SSD, it is normal that you have no problems, although if it is too old, you should check that the laptop connection is SATA, since in case it is IDE, there are few units available , Although fortunately some can be found in online stores.

One factor to keep in mind is the thickness of the disk, since some modern computers are so thin that they need a 7mm thick hard disk, instead of the traditional 9.5mm 2.5 "disks. The first ones are somewhat difficult to find, although now we have 1TB and 2TB hard drives at reasonable prices. This problem we will not have with 2.5 "SSD, since all of them are 7 mm.

If we want to keep our disk, and we have verified that we have an mSATA slot, it is possible to find mSATA units, although their stocks are increasingly limited, as this is disappearing in favor of the new format M.2, which contributes In addition to more capacity, greater performance thanks to the new NVMe protocol, which is capable of achieving read and write speeds in excess of 3000 MB / s.

3: Connect the disc
Although many computers do not allow easy maintenance of the fan and cpu, it is very common that these have a simple access for the disks. It is common to find a dedicated dedicated to this type of units and RAM, the two components that are usually changed in laptops.

Other models will have to remove the full lid, while some ultrabooks are so thin that they will only allow 2.5 "and 7mm thick discs in the best case, while the most normal is that we only have one slot for A main SSD with mSATA or M.2 format.

If we talk about a midrange laptop, after removing the lid we will see the space to accommodate the disk drive. If our laptop has an internal DVD drive, we could replace it with a caddy for an additional disk, with which we can connect a second drive in our computer, something really useful, given the disuse of DVD players.

The connection itself does not have any complications and it is only to fit it in its corresponding place, and screw it in if it offers the possibility. In mSATA or M.2 disks, it is normal for the space itself to have the hardware ready to place the units.

Once the disk is in place, we can close our laptop again and turn it on again to run our new unit.  

4: Configuration on the system
At this point the disk detection is automatic. In fact, just connect it, if you enter the bios you will see. Otherwise, it will have to check the connection, since something has done wrong, or the disk is defective.

If we have replaced the original disk, we will have run out of operating system, so it will play reinstall everything again. Check that you have all the drivers of the equipment ready for installation. The disk detection in this case will be immediate, and selecting where to install the system will be the only option available.

 

If what you have done is add another hard drive in addition, chances are that when you enter the operating system, the new drive does not appear on the computer. You will have to accede as we saw at the beginning in administration of disks, pressing right mouse button on the button of start of windows. Then we will see how the new disc appears, although this will appear in black and without any letter assigned.

Most likely, just open the disk management and ask us what kind of partitioning we want to make the new disk, you can choose between MBR and GPT, which comes by default, and that is the option to select.

If this popup window does not appear, but if we see our new disk in black, what we have to do is press the right mouse button on the disk, click on create new volume, and just follow the steps, set the Size of the partition, and assign the drive letter. In a few seconds we will have the unit ready for use.