SONY PCG-K315M Upgrade Hard Drive

[mattmcquiff]

What is the biggest drive that this will take, I've been looking around and on this site, someone has successfully put a 120GB drive in, but the large sizes are cheaper. I'm thinking of a 160gb? If it doesn't work can partitioning into 2 80gb can that make it work?

Matt

[Blencogo · Accepted solution]

Some models built before XP SP2 release suffer from the 28-bit ATA Interface limit of 137GB.  This means that even if a disc of 500GB is installed, the Vaio will only recognise 137GB even if it is partitioned.  This limit is because 28-bit can only address enough hard drive sectors for 137GB.

To recognise more than 137GB, 48-bit Logical Block addressing has to be enabled and the BIOS needs to support more than 137GB.

This is why most people choose a 120GB upgrade if they have an older Vaio to be sure it will work correctly.

However, although I am not 100% sure, I do not think there is any limit on your model as long as you have upgraded to XP SP3.  Any ATA (NOT SATA) drive should work as long as it is physically equal to or slimmer than 9mm.

Replacement is a nice easy job on the K-Series.