Win 7 on laptop

Any 2.5" SATA hard drive will do. You can probably try a SSD such as here these will be faster although the system can't run them at the maximum speed. The other HDDs are cheaper and offer larger storage such as here

The Vista drivers will work except for the Bluetooth (see my wiki).

I advise maxing the RAM up to 4 GB using the part here. The maximum that is officially supported but if 4 GB is installed you can use 3.25 GB.

You should set up Media Direct partitions before Windows on this system. See my wiki A Clean Install of Windows 7.

Where would you recommend I look for a compatible hard drive for my pc?

I have already backed up any files I want.

I misspoke, I am not doing an upgrade, but a clean install.

CPU is Intel Centrino Duo T2500.

Cheaper to buy a new compatible  hard drive and win 7 than a new computer.

dont try that,   if the drivers aint compatible with win 7,  the system isnt gonna work. ebay the old computer is a better option.    used dell computer (like 1 year old) are rly cheap now.

The difference is my 9400 is xp not vista

Great website. Read every word and clicked on every link, learned a lot. Thanks

A couple of quick questions.

I tried the Win 7 comp Advisor and it runs for 45 minutes and doesn't finish. I will try it again with firewall and AV disabled, hopefully will work.

I looked at my disk mgmt:

A  39 MB and says Dell Utility ( must be something Dell Branded

C Is where I will install Win7 and is 71GB

D says unformatted and is 4.67 GB this is where the Dell Restore-Ghost used to be and is now empty.

My question, just leave A and D alone when installing the clean Win 7 or should I delete them and if so how?

A will be the diagnostics partition I imagine.

D is useless and won't work so get rid of it.

During the Windows 7 install you will get this screen select "Drive Options".

This will reveal the drive options. The tools are rather self-explanatory. For a new hard drive you will need to select New to make a new partition (case below).

You should get a message saying some space must be "System Reserved" and a System Reserved Partition is made, don't worry about it, it is very small.

When you have an existing Windows partition you have a few options:

• 1. To delete it and then must create a new partition or partitions if you want multiple partitions e.g. for dual boot or for other reasons; this will remove all data and factory partition. Once you have created your partitions; select the partition you wish to install Windows on and select Next. You might as well delete the Dell factory partition if going down this route as it will no longer work and hence serve no service.

• 2. To format it, leave the partition intact but remove all data and factory partition. You might as well delete the Dell factory partition if going down this route as it will no longer work and hence serve no service and instead Extend the main partition.

• 3. To install Windows on the partition but not format it (in this case all old files will be found in the Windows.old folder). Again you might as well delete the Dell factory partition if going down this route as it will no longer work and hence serve no service and instead Extend the main partition.

good, I have no specialty hardware, just what came with the laptop.

OS Name	Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version	5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer	Microsoft Corporation
System Name	NOTEBOOK
System Manufacturer	Dell Inc.
System Model	MP061
System Type	X86-based PC
Processor	x86 Family 6 Model 14 Stepping 8 GenuineIntel ~1997 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date	Dell Inc. A10, 8/26/2009
SMBIOS Version	2.4
Windows Directory	C:\WINDOWS
System Directory	C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device	\Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale	United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer	Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name	NOTEBOOK\Greg
Time Zone	Central Daylight Time
Total Physical Memory	2,048.00 MB
Available Physical Memory	1.25 GB
Total Virtual Memory	2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory	1.96 GB
Page File Space	3.84 GB
Page File	C:\pagefile.sys

Your system should run Windows 7 32 bit fine.

However since it is an x86 processor 64 bit probably won't be possible. I assume it is an Intel T2500?

Go to Start > Right click My Computer and select properties.

It will tell you your processor here

You have 2.0 GB of RAM, Windows 7 will run fine on this. If you feel like it you can get the 4 GB using the part here (3.25 GB will be usable). 

Also go to the hardware tab and select Device Manager

What is under display adaptors and network adapters?

Display adapters shows Intel 945 Chipset Family

Network Adapters shows

1394 Net Adapter

Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated controller

Intel Pro/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection

Still not sure about the install from a Win7 CD. When the install starts do I just choose to install in C drive over my current xp?