Guest SliCk Posted August 29, 2006 Report Share Posted August 29, 2006 I am fairly unhappy with my laptop's hard drive it only spins at 4200rpm, its noisy and when matched with the 512ddr ram and 2gig p4 installed it some how dosen't fit right. I know the fix though - I could chip-in with $150 for Hitachi travelstar and get the 60gig 7200rpm disk and its something I'm about to do but before that I wanted to ask if theres any chance to try something else. I would buy the hitachi 2.5" HDD but I have these huge 200gig Seagate P-ATA HDDs for desktop pc. I was wondering if I could get them to work with my lappy? Is there some sort of PCMCIA to -> IDE controller to make those desktop disks to boot and basically work on laptop environment? I know there must be sort of device to make this connection even though the disk will work externally. I simply want to use the speed and space I currently have. I'd appreciate all the feedback on this. If you know something share, please. Also as sub-request. I would like to ask the forum members who are happy with their notebook hard drives to post their models, P/Ns. If I can't get this working I'm going to buy 2.5" disk, yet I want to know what would be best. Thanks in advance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabrice Roux Posted August 29, 2006 Report Share Posted August 29, 2006 Go for the dead silent HDD got for the inexpensive Samsung 120Gb. You won't believe your ears and global performance for a 5400 rpm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 thats great but any chance to utilize a desktop hdd on notebook? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabrice Roux Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 thats great but any chance to utilize a desktop hdd on notebook? Yep but you need a hammer and a hardcase... then hammer the 3"5 HDD to fit in a 2"5 enclosure. (9.5mm high) Then if the HDD still work you'll have your own made desktop HDD in a laptop. But the laptop HDDs use one fifth of the desktop HDD power... so the battery life is much better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 My wife reckons I can shrink anything in the washing machine. Send me your hard drive and I'll give it a go. You cannot fit a 3.5" drive into a 2.5" space You want performance get a 7200RPM driver, I got one and will never look back. They have come down in price quite a bit now. External USB2 or Firewire drive ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest SliCk Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 I'm wondering if I'm missing something here.... I never said I wanted to fit desktop HDD in laptop...the washing machine and hammer is a good joke, yet out of line. My latpop I8200 sits tight and I use it as a desktop-like pc. For that reason I was wondering since I have those huge 200 gig 7200rpm, 8c. disks for desktop maybe I could coume up with some sort of bridge that will enable desktop HDDs being hooked up to laptop via lets say ... PCMCIA device, or usb, or firewire. I don't need to place the disk inside the notebook...duh :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Lead_Factor Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 Buy a USB HDD enclosure then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 If your laptop has SATA built in it is the same interface for both laptop and desktop drives, just need power for the desktop drive to run it. Otherwise they do make a PCMCIA to dual SATA card. The PCMCIA cards can run even a RAID 0 if you want, although they cannot reach the highest speeds due to PCMCIA bus limitations. However, http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.....x=0&Go.y=0 The express 54 cards you see there probably can reach the max speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 I'm wondering if I'm missing something here....I never said I wanted to fit desktop HDD in laptop...the washing machine and hammer is a good joke, yet out of line. My latpop I8200 sits tight and I use it as a desktop-like pc. For that reason I was wondering since I have those huge 200 gig 7200rpm, 8c. disks for desktop maybe I could coume up with some sort of bridge that will enable desktop HDDs being hooked up to laptop via lets say ... PCMCIA device, or usb, or firewire. I don't need to place the disk inside the notebook...duh :) We realise your not trying to fit the HD in the Laptop, we don't get out much and like to make a litlle fun :) Your best bet is to get a USB2 or Firewire (they often come as combo) enclosure, I have one for my external DVD-burner. I prefer to use Firewire as this has slightly less latency and I get better performance from it. PCMCIA I think is limited to 33MB's at the very best, also means cumbersome adaptor and cable sticking out usually from an awkward place on the laptop. Do Dell have a Docking station with IDE ports ? I've seen one somewere with SCSI ports, I can no longer find it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 The older C dock II docking station with SCSI that would work with C series laptops like mine, the SCSI port is actually quite slow, you would be better off using firewire or an SATA laptop card. Now some of the newer laptops like the Precision M90 and some others can use newer docks that possibly have desktop PCI express connectors (pretty sure about this one), and maybe better SCSI or something, maybe SATA ports, as some of the Dell laptops now have SATA drives. I can also beat Pieter's "I have seen them" on the SCSI equiped dock, I have 2 of those docking stations. :) The docks with slow SCSI DO have desktop PCI slots, could put a large RAID controller card in one of those if you so desired. This is about Dell's docks, they own all others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 :) found it http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Laptops...on-68047495.htm 2x PCI 2x SCSI you can get SATA PCI card or PATA one to match your current HD Put the HD in the media bay. Same as yours Bill ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 Read the description more carefully, it only has 1 SCSI port, not 2. Of course with SCSI you would daisy chain, could put 8 HDDs on the one port if you wanted. Anyway yes that is what I have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 Read the description more carefully, it only has 1 SCSI port, not 2.Of course with SCSI you would daisy chain, could put 8 HDDs on the one port if you wanted. Anyway yes that is what I have. I do believe you can attach 7 devices as the host is considered a device :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest SliCk Posted September 1, 2006 Report Share Posted September 1, 2006 Alright, now that we've narrowed down the problem it seems I'll be looking to buy 3.5" HDD enclosure. But here I have few questions. I will want to be able to boot from the external drive. I have Latitude C840/I8200 laptop. Now I'd like to ask. This notebook supports only USB 1.1 not 2.0 right? Which means USB enclosure would mean severely limited transfer rate. Also it won't support USB booting would it? Does my notebook support atleast firewire boot? I would like to install OS on the external drive, which will be faster obviously so booting is also at stake. Not to mention firewire has great transfer rate ratio. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabrice Roux Posted September 1, 2006 Report Share Posted September 1, 2006 You want to speed up your laptop HDD... belive me anything including USB High Speed or Firewire will make it slower. I don't even talk about USB Full speed. *rolls eyes* The bus speed of these devices is theoritically half what you can get from a IDE HDD. In fact you hit much lower results. And you're not even sure your laptop boots on USB devices. Please get yourself a Samsung 5400 rpm drive... or one of these nice perpendicular HDDs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted September 1, 2006 Report Share Posted September 1, 2006 I have never seen or heard of anybody booting a USB or firewire device on the I8200/C840, you might be out of luck there. Firewire is of course faster, you can also get a USB2.0 card instead of the laptop''s build in USB. The SATA card is a better faster idea though, and it might be bootable somehow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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