# [SOLVED]Laptop hard drive died

## dreadlorde

The hard drive in my laptop died. I can't seem to find any reputable places to buy the same one, so would any 2.5" wide, 9.5mm high, hard drive fit in the laptop?

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## DONAHUE

sata or pata matters a lot. Matching size plus interface should be all you need to get interchangeability.

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## dreadlorde

According to the Toshiba website, it's ATA-5, which from what I read on wikipedia is PATA. Also, wikipedia says this about ATA-6 drive *Quote:*   

> Connecting such a drive to a host with an ATA-5 or earlier interface will limit the usable capacity to the maximum of the controller.

 Does that mean I could connect an ATA-6 drive to an ATA-5 controller, and it would work but with limitations?

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## DONAHUE

just as it says if the controller is ata5 40gb and you install a 60gb ata6 20 gb will not be used.

I'd go ahead and open the laptop and read the nameplate on the drive itself.

http://www.fonerbooks.com/laptop_1.htm is one of a bunch of useful sites that google will find for laptop hard drive replacement. Don't forget to remove battery and charger first. Getting at hard drive is usually easy, particularly compared to cd drive.

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## Mad Merlin

Was the drive /dev/hda (probably PATA) or /dev/sda (probably SATA)? It's easier to check the type on the drive itself though. Aside from that, any 2.5" drive of the correct interface should work for you. Your BIOS will need to support drives larger than ~127G if you put a drive that large in there (if you want to use the space beyond that limit).

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## dreadlorde

 *Mad Merlin wrote:*   

> Was the drive /dev/hda (probably PATA) or /dev/sda (probably SATA)? It's easier to check the type on the drive itself though. Aside from that, any 2.5" drive of the correct interface should work for you. Your BIOS will need to support drives larger than ~127G if you put a drive that large in there (if you want to use the space beyond that limit).

 It was /dev/hda. I'm currently looking online for a drive. I'll definitely post any questions I have about them here.

edit: would either of these work? This or this.

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## Letharion

 *dreadlorde wrote:*   

> would either of these work?

 

I believe so.

It has already been mentioned, but I'll say it too. As long as the interface (PATA) matches, you should be ok.

I don't think you run any other risks than maybe not seeing the entire drive if you upgrade the size considerably.

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## NeddySeagoon

dreadlorde,

Check the interface and physical size.  Thats all that matters.

ATAx is backwards compatible with ATXy, the lowest common level supported by both the drive and controller will be used. Drive size is not part of the ATA spec, so you be able to use all of a larger drive.

With a larger drive, there is a couple of minor gotchas.

1) Older BIOSes will sometimes not POST with a drive bigger that they understand fitted. There is a magic number like that at 33Gb.

2) If they do POST, they may only be able to read up to (33G, or 137G), in which case you must ensure that all the files needed to boot are in a region that can be read by the BIOS.  Thats why the small /boot at the front of the drive was created.

BIOSes were fixed for the 33Gb limit about 10 years ago, so its not likely you will be affected.

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## dreadlorde

I think I have it now, thanks everyone.

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