laptop hard drive question

[jonn]

i have an old dell inspiron 1501 laptop and today a buzzing sound is coming from the hard drive. think this means it is on its way out. how much longer will it last? if i get a new hard drive whats the best way to transfer everything onto a new hard drive? usb memory stick?

[jimbob-mcgrew]

sure its the drive and not one of the fans ?

its usually a sign there on there way out if there grinding. ive seen some give up straight away, and others carry on getting louder and louder for months and months and don't seem to die. It depends on the quality of the drive and if its taken a lot of knocks or not.

it will most likely last a while longer, but best to change it sooner than later so you don't loose anything important.
if windows starts to not boot properly on occasions, then that's a clear sign its not reading/writing properly.

if you can fit everything you need on a usb stick, yeah that's an easy way to do it, and then transfer the data back onto the new drive after its been fitted and windows is re-installed.

burning dvd's is another option. can fit 4 gig on each

one thing id advise before you fit the new drive : get all the software drivers you need (audio / video / chipset, etc) before you re-install windows on the new drive (especially the network drivers) otherwise you might not be able to get on the net to source any you need.

and do a bit of research on your model no. too, as older machines are usually bottle necked to a size limit of drive. no point buying a 500 gig if its limited to 100. if your confident enough to do it... updating the bios to the latest version can sometimes unlock extra options and larger drive sizes.

hope that makes sense :thumb: