One of the most frequently asked questions we are asked is whether a particular laptop hard disk drive that we sell fits or is compatible with a certain laptop
We have composed a list of tips in order to help you choose the right item as summarised below:
If you are intending to upgrade your laptop hard drive to a larger one then the general rule is that any brand and any model will be compatible with your laptop so long as you purchase the right type of 2.5" hard drive. There are two main types of hard drives used by laptops-ide(also known as pata, ata, udma, dma) and sata (also known as s-ata, serial-ata).The former is used by almost all laptops older than 4 years old that have use Intel Pentium 3, 4, Celeron or Centrino processors running windows 98 and XP. The latter is used by almost all laptops with duo/dual core processors running Windows Vista or Windows 7.
IDE (ATA, DMA, udma, ultra-ata,pata, eide) hard drives have two rows of connector pins
SATA ( serial-ata, s-ata) hard drives has a slot like connector with two "L shaped" connectors.
Please note that some laptops have removable adapters/connectors that attach/fit over its hard drive connectors which needs to be removed in order to show what type of hard drive it is.
Another method you can use to determine the type of hard drive you need is to physically check the existing one in your laptop and then type in the model number or part number (p/n) of your current hard drive into a search engine or of the manufacturers website and then this will tell you what type of connector it uses.
Each manufacturer of hard drives have a unique combination of letters and numbers which forms the model number.
The main manufacturers have model numbers beginning with the following two letters:
HT/IC/DK (Hitachi and IBM) examples include: HTS721080G9SA00, DK23EA-40, IC25N020ATMR04-0, HTS424040M9AT00, HTS421260H9AT00,
WD (Western Digital) examples include: WD400VE, WD1200BEVT, WD2500BEVT, WD600VE
ST (Seagate) examples include:ST94011A, ST96081A, ST96812AS, ST9160821AS, ST9120822AS
MH ( Fujitsu) examples include: MHT2040AT, MHT2060AH, MHV2040AS, MHT2080BH,MHV2160BH
MK (Toshiba) examples include: MK4025GAS, MK2018GAP, MK2035GSS, MK1637GSX, MK6021GAS
MP/HM (Samsung) examples include: HM0603H, MP0402H, HM160HI, HM250HI, MP0804H
If you wish to transfer all your data including your operating system, files, drivers and settings from the current hard drive you're using with your laptop to your new one then there are various programs that enable you to do this very effectively. You may however require additional hardware in order to do this but please contact us if you wish to do this and we can recommend a list of options to you.