Inspiron 1720 - How to Select Large HDD Replacement

Question

My 1720 is telling me that my HDD is about to fail :emotion-6:. I have backups, saved nightly, of the complete drive. The primary drive is SATA and is a 2.5" Toshiba 500 GB, or at least that is what it was supposed to be, maybe it was a 320 GB. It only shows 193 GB. Advertising for the 1720 says 500 GB using two HDDs, so I assume the BIOS limits the total that can be addressed. I would like to know what maximum size HDD I can use in this computer. What are limiting factors? If it is available, could I buy a 500 GB drive or above and format into two or three or more partitions to take advantage of the full drive size? The Toshiba HDD replaced the original drive supplied by Dell (I think it was SATA 160 GB, showing 136 GB) which I have as a second drive. Do you have any recommendations on size and replacement product? Would there be another BIOS that would allow larger drives? (I think my BIOS is the latest available, Version A09) Thanks.

This is what Belarc Advisor says about my drives (drive 0 is primary, drive 1 is original now available as spare/backup, drive 2 is an SD card, and drive 3 is external HD - Note Drive 0 shows Failure!

Disk drive (500.11 GB) -- drive 3
Ricoh SD/MMC Disk Device (2.03 GB) -- drive 2
ST9160821AS [Hard drive] (160.04 GB) -- drive 1, s/n 5MA8RYL3, rev 3.CDE,SMART Status: Healthy
TOSHIBA MK3252GSX [Hard drive] (320.07 GB) -- drive 0, s/n X8EBT3W4T, rev LV011D, SMART Failure

Here are present volumes:


c: (NTFS on drive 0) * Operating System on this drive	186.80 GB	46.26 GB free
d: (NTFS on drive 0) Dell Restore Sector	21.47 GB	15.86 GB free
f: (NTFS on drive 1) Spare Drive	146.54 GB	137.67 GB free
g: (NTFS on drive 1) Former Dell Restore Sector	10.74 GB	10.34 GB free
i: (NTFS on drive 3) External HD Not sure what this is	42.32 GB	33.77 GB free
k: (NTFS on drive 3) External HD used as backup daily	368.28 GB	188.07 GB free

ejn63 · Accepted Answer

You can use any SATA notebook hard drive that will physically fit the system (i.e., 7- or 9.5 mm drives;  12.5 mm drives won't fit).  There is no limit on capacity.

chuckssite · Accepted Answer

Ok, my bad.  Yes, Amazon did not properly secure the drive in the shipping box, and I eventually decided that I would send it back and hope that they did a better job in shipping.  But before I shipped it back, I noticed that I had neglected to remove the connector, the accessory piece that actually connects the drive to the computer.  That's why the contact structure looked different.  So, I was pleased to see that the replacement drive was shipped properly so that all pieces were secured in the box.  I installed it, and it was recognized by the BIOS.  Then I formatted the drive and cloned the existing primary drive to the new drive.  All worked well.  Then I did a check-disk on the old drive that was designated as 'failing.'  It was supposed to check for damaged sectors and repair them or block them off.  I'm not sure what the results of this action was as I went to bed while it was checking over half a million files one at a time.  There was no message on the machine and it had rebooted.  I switched the drives and the new 500 GB drive is now primary, and the old 320 GB is secondary.  I have a 500 GB drive as external backup.  Since this computer does not house videos or photo albums, I think the extra disk space will accommodate my needs for the life of this computer.  As an added benefit, the new drive has speeded up the operation considerably.  I thank those who tried to lead me to a viable solution.

Philip_Yip · Answer

You should first get 1 or more external hard drives to back up all your data and consider using cloud storage such as SkyDrive for very important files you can't afford to lose.

Looking at your hard drives it seems:

ST9160821AS [Hard drive] (160.04 GB) -- drive 1, s/n 5MA8RYL3, rev 3.CDE,SMART Status: Healthy
TOSHIBA MK3252GSX [Hard drive] (320.07 GB) -- drive 0, s/n X8EBT3W4T, rev LV011D, SMART Failure

You have 2 hard drives which sum to ~ 500 GB. I am not sure why you have 500 GB as your disc drive but I assume this is coming up as a summation of drives.

As your system comes with 2 hard drive compartments and one is failing I would recommend installation of both a Solid State of capacity 128 GB-256 GB and a 1 TB conventional hard drive. Both parts are available from Crucial.com:

http://www.crucial.com/upgrade/Dell-memory/Inspiron+Laptops%2fNotebooks/Inspiron+1720-upgrades.html

If you clean install Windows on the SSD aswell as programs such as Office your systems performance will increase substantially and at the same time you can use the 1 TB drive for file storage.

chuckssite · Answer

Thanks for reply. First, an answer. I have the 500 GB external hard drive for my backups. As mentioned, I do a full backup every night with Acronis backup software, and I have additional space for saving additional stuff that I don't want on my main drive. The 320 GB drive that is failing contains everything. I don't use the 160 GB drive. It was the original HD which I replaced by the Toshiba 320 GB. I have used it occasionally for partial backup. Now for the future. I definitely need to replace my Toshiba, and I like your suggestions, but they are somewhat costly, and I don't think I need the Solid State Drive. Maybe you could sell me on that idea. I was thinking of using the original 160 (or 132 GB actual) GB drive to store the Windows and Office programs, and the replacement drive to store everything else. I'm not sure I know the proper steps to accomplish this. Can I wipe the160 GB drive clean with a format and install the Windows and Office. Then remove it and replace with new large HD. Then copy everything that is on the Toshiba disk to the new HD. Then switch the disks with the small one with Windows becoming primary, and the new large one secondary. Then I delete Windows (can this be done?) and Office from the new large drive. This would leave Windows and Office alone on the boot disk, and all the other files and programs on the other disk. BUT if I do it that way I wouldn't have any links intact to the files on the new drive. I don't know how to handle that. There must be a way to do this. Can a set of "cookbook" steps be provided to let me put all the stuff that was on my primary drive on the secondary drive and be able to find it? I can see a potential for making a mess of things if I do the steps in an incorrect order.

PS - I don't know anything about SSDs, so while I wait for an answer, I'll do a bit of research. Thanks for your help.

Philip_Yip · Answer

I think everything should be backed up on your external hard drive. Use a Linux distribution to do this if Windows cannot boot.

For more information see Windows Reinstallation Guide:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/

There is a section on page 294 which explains how to do this.

The guide will also instruct you how to clean install Windows on the new hard drive.

The Solid State Drive has higher performance and if Windows is installed on it the overall performance of the system should increase. It also has no moving parts and generates less heat, some people have reported better battery life wen using a SSD as a boot drive also. The drawback is price and storage capacity. In your system as you can install 2 drives then the only drawback is price.

chuckssite · Answer

My initial question was answered - I should be able to add larger drives to my Inspiron 1720.  Since I was satisfied with my computer, I decided to just update the drive to gain additional space and, perhaps, better performance, which would be a plus.  Also, various diagnostics show my present Toshiba drive is failing, so I need to do something.  I thought the best solution, for me, would be to install a new larger drive and clone everything on the Toshiba to the new drive.  So, I followed the link above to the Crucial site.  It suggested 500 GB Western Digital Black drive.  I found that drive but also a newer model, so I purchased this one: Western Digital 500 GB WD Black SATA III 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Notebook Hard Drive WD5000BPKX.  It arrived loose in the box, so I don't know if it was damaged in transit.  Also, the contact structure is different fhan the Seagate 160 GB drive that I took out of the computer.  Despite this, I put the new 500 GB WD drive in the caddy that housed the 160 GB drive and installed it in the computer.  I started the computer, and went to the BIOS.  It does not recognize the new drive - nor does device manager.  So, I'm wondering if the contacts are actually connected in the drive bay or if the drive was damaged in shipment or what might be the problem.  I don't know what SATA III means.  Would it mean a different contact structure?  Do I need a different caddy?  Should I send that drive back for replacement and try again?  I thought this would be an easy upgrade, but .......

Philip_Yip · Answer

:emotion-21: Sounds good, thanks for posting back regarding your success. I will mark the question as answered.

Storage, Drives & Media

Inspiron 1720 - How to Select Large HDD Replacement

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