 Number 203 - April 2000 |
| Easy Hard Drive Updates for Notebook Computers | |
| By Dick Reaser, LACS, March 2000 User Friendly | |
|
Introduction
A few month ago, I was lamenting the problem of running out of hard drive space on my older (vintage 1996) notebook, a Fujitsu Pentium 133 Lifebook 535T which has a 2.1 GB hard drive. I considered compression, FAT32 and maybe even a bigger drive. I didn't have much success finding a bigger drive solution. Everything seems to be such a mystery with notebooks. Hardly anyone wants to mess with them, and even those who specialize in notebooks seem to want to urge you to get a whole new system which is supposed to be Bigger, Better, Faster and cheaper in the long run. Most anything you have done on a notebook computer is much more expensive than on a desktop computer. So I just suffered along with my lack of disk space. I was too timid to do anything else. Until now, that is, I feel I should pass this information on because it is a major breakthrough for notebook users! Do It Yourself There is now a Do It Yourself technique available that makes it a snap to upgrade your notebook hard drive. Drives now available come with a special PCMCIA cable connection which makes upgrading the drive truly a "Do It Yourself" situation. 1. You use the special cable provided to plug your new drive into the PCMCIA port of your notebook. 2. You run a program from a 3 1/2 inch floppy disk. It formats your new drive and copies the entire contents of your old drive (still inside your notebook) onto the new drive. I think it makes some changes with special overlay software that allows the new drive to be recognized and used by your notebook and BIOS system. 3. You turn off your notebook and remove the old drive. 4. You put the new drive in its place. 5. You turn your notebook on, everything works, and you have more drive space available. Kingston has such a drive upgrade system called StrataDrive. You can check out these drives at (888)435-5419 on The Kingston notebook drives come in various sizes: 6GB for $330; 8GB for $455; 10GB for $478 and others up to 14GB. Fujitsu told me that it now has its own brand upgrade drive of 4.1GB with the same type of easy installation available for $349. Preliminaries I worked up the guts to open up my notebook to see if I could find its existing hard drive. There were four screws holding on a plastic cover on the bottom of my notebook and beneath that was the drive with another four screws holding a flat steel plate that acts as a heat sink and mounting bracket attached to the drive. It was easy for me to lift out the drive and measure the dimensions. A very short ribbon cable ran from a |
multiple pin connector on the drive to a
socket on the notebook motherboard. Both ends of the cable were easily
removable. I ended up re-using this cable and the heat sink/mounting
bracket. My old drive was made by IBM and is 12.2 mm thick without the
bracket. So, logically, any of the new drives should fit.
My notebook warranty still has about 14 months to go. My only complaint with the notebook is that it only has about 22MB of free space left on it, so I continually get "Out of hard disk space" error messages. I mostly use it for trips, and those seem to be getting less frequent. I liked the idea of spending only about one quarter to one third the cost of a new computer to keep it going. I chose the Kingston 8 MB StrataDrive Generic (model KGEN/8+) and ordered it on Kingston's web site. Installation The unit came enclosed in a special ESD (Electro-Static Discharge) bag including a wrist strap, grounding strap and detailed instructions that allow you to ground yourself to your computer while handling the drive to prevent "zapping" either yourself, your computer, or the drive. The new drive is a perfect physical match for my old drive. First, I backed up my entire notebook system to tape. This took a little over four hours including the backup verification process. While this was occurring, I carefully read and studied the eighteen-page, 5 by 7 1/2 inch manual and its illustrations. I cautiously followed the steps, and everything worked just as the manual said it would. I now have a single partition, FAT32, 8.2GB hard drive instead of the FAT16, 2.1GB drive. All of my previously installed software seems to work just fine. Everything was done automatically for me. You do need to run ScanDisk on the new drive as soon as you use the computer. Technical Support The folks at Kingston were very knowledgeable and helpful by answering all my questions. This allowed me to decide whether to attempt this approach. I didn't have to call them at all when I was actually performing the installation. I think they are really on to something with this product. There are, I'm sure, many others in the same state I was. That is, their hard drive was not large enough any more and they had no known easy way to improve their situation other than buying a new notebook. The market situation is something similar to 'way back when Stac Electronics was able to fill a similar need (on Desktop and notebook computers with its data compression programs) except that not many today would venture into compression on their hard drives. Conclusion I'm really pleased with my experience with the Kingston StrataDrive. Upgrading turned out to be a very easy process for me. This product puts installing a larger drive in a notebook within the realm of possibility for most of us. You will have to make your own decision about upgrading or replacing your notebook. StrataDrive Kingston Technology Company 17600 Newhope Street Fountain Valley, CA 92708 http://www.kingston.com 877-KINGSTON (toll free) |
|
Number 203 - April 2000
|
|