Changing the HDD in my PCG-K195HP

[milano_chris]

Where is the internal one located? I got a 80 GB Fujitsu MHT2080AH drive to replace it with and want to use the internal 40GB as a portable one.

[Stephanius]

The K series has the HDD in a bay on the bottom of the unit, next to the memory modules.

Please be careful with the HDD connector, notebooks use plastic foil cable which you can rip and destroy rather easily, pull on the connector, never the cable.

Please be aware that the new HDD may or may not consume more power than the old one and/or may also give off more heat compared to the old one.

I would put the 80GB drive into the external box, use a partitioning software tool to move both partitions from the original HDD to the new HDD, then build in the 80GB drive to see if it runs smoothly for a week or two. Then you can still delete the old partitions on the original drive and use it as external harddrive.

[milano_chris]

I take it it would not work if I was just to create two partitions on the 80GB and copied the files from the 40GB onto the 80Gb and used it that way?

If not what software would you recomend or can XP's Disk managment complete the process?

[Stephanius]

Basically there are 3 ways to go:

No risk
just use the 80GB HDD as external HDD =]

Some risk/work

• make sure all your documents are on the 😧 partition of your old HDD
  
• remove the original HDD and built in the new one - make sure you remove AC-adapter and battery before you do this
  
• enter the BIOS using the F2 key at startup, press F9, confirm you want to reset defaults, press F10, confirm you want to save and exit.
  
• perform a recovery with the discs you received with your Vaio.
  
• build the original HDD into the external HDD case, copy your data over to the new HDD from the original HDD's 😧 partition.
  
• reinstall your programs from there respective discs
  

Some HW risk, data at risk, less work.
Use a partitioning program like partition magic - should be approx 100 Euro - and use that to copy the entire partitions from the old HDD to the new one, make sure you activate the first partition and resize the second one to use the remaining space. Do NOT mess with this if you dont know what you are doing.

[milano_chris]

It won't let me copy the partitions. Perhaps this is due to it being a dynamic disk?

[Stephanius]

uhm, you lost me there.

You can NOT copy whole partitions using XP's build-in disk management.
When using a suitable program, it does not matter if the discs are build-in and connected to the mainboards ATA controller, or if they are in an external case connected by USB or IEEE1394.

[milano_chris]

Sorry I didn't explain myself properly.

I have tried to copy the partitions using partition magic. It won't let me do it and it doesn't say why.

Could it be as I have my primare HDD set up as a dynamic disk?

[seb21__]

You can't set a HDD in a laptop as dynamic. It wouldn't make any sense.

[milano_chris]

I set it up for other reasons which are beside the point. Could it be the reason why it won't copy the partitions?

[seb21__]

I don't know. But it could be. And you can't return it.