replacing laptop hardrive

M

mts

Registered User
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The hard drive in my Dell laptop has failed and I need to replace it. Tech support have advised me that if I buy a new hard drive online rather than from Dell that I may not be able to load Windows using the cd that came with the laptop.

Does anyone have any experience of this? Thanks.
 
Sounds like technobabble to me. Ask them why and get the specifics.

Theres only two issues AFAIK.
1. You don't have the CD and Windows is on a hidden partition on the HD.
2. Media Center is also on a hidden partition on the HD and a pain to set up.

Personally I don't use MediaCenter and once I had the Dell CD I never a problem. But I'd check with support what the heck they are babbling on about.
 
Unless the data of the BIOS is held in a partition on the original hard drive and the OS wont install without access to it.
Ring CS and ask for clarifications.
 
nmesisca said:
Unless the data of the BIOS is held in a partition on the original hard drive and the OS wont install without access to it.
Ring CS and ask for clarifications.
Click to expand...

Er what? Is that technically possible? Never heard of it.
 
The BIOS is firmware.
How can it be on the HD?
What would even be the point?
Can you give an example from one you've seen?
 
the BIOS is firmware, the data the BIOS is processing can be held in firmware too, or on any other media. old machines (laptops servers, ibm compaq dell and hp especially) have used this method in the past to save data on hidden partitions.
as i said i havent seen it done on new machines but i have been in the business for almost 20 years.
 
Last edited:
Can you give an example of something thats part of the bios that would be held on the HD?

I have never seen it, even going back to 286/386's or Apple 68020, Dec Alpha, etc.
 
drive configuration, raid setup if any, and definitely diagnostics. keep in mind that big names machines have generally a limited functionality firmware that exposes only the necessary settings to the user.
I think the compaq armada 1500 had that too. compaq servers (old proliant) as well.


Armada 7400 too.
 
I have a desktop with the Winows XP Dvd and that gives me no trouble if I want to replace my hard drive but my laptop has an OEM installation with a reset disk and this worries me if I ever had a problem. What can someone do about replacing a hard drive when the operating system is on a hidden partition to ensure they have the legal copy of windows whch they originally have paid for ? It does not seem straightforward.
 
you could examine the original hard drive with partition magic to see if that partition is there in the first place. if it is you could try and mirror the same partition on the newer drive (with ghost or similar). once its mirrored the installation via the OEM disk should go through.
 

Er, how can it read the HD if the info/config to read the HD is on the HD.
 

That sounds like what happened to mine last summer.
I gave the old drive to a company and the transferred an exact image of the data to the new drive.
I then restarted and luckily the failed hard drive hadn't corrupted the original reinstallation partition - this is an IBM Thinkpad standard installation.

I reinstalled from the hidden partition and so far so good - nearly a year on.
One unusual thing I noted.
I was running out of space on the old 60Gb HD and an 80Gb HD was the smallest available so we fitted that.
When the IBM installer formatted the drive, it did it in such a way that not only was it FAT 32 Win2K [for legacy applications is wasn't NTFS] but it also somehow "made it" 60Gb - magic.

I was told that there is a way to do this at sector level on the drive, so that when say, drives of 100Gb or 80Gb are the only ones available, the spec is still the same.
Cannot see the point myself, but I'm sure its a pricing and marketing thing.

For What Its Worth.



ONQ
 

yeah those applications always default on the most compatible option (FAT or FAT32 depending on age of the machine). The reason why you still had 60GB even though the new drive was 80GB is because the tool you used to format the drive was made specifically for those model PCs, which had only the 60GB hard drives as spares.
You can defintely reach the wanted result (80GB+) but you'd have to have a look at the original config first and try a couple times.
Alternatively, Im sure someone else has done it and has posted on the internet at some stage.
 
nmesisca said:
the firmware looks for the partition on the first available fixed drive.
Click to expand...

But I won't see any drive if the config isn't in the firmware.
It must be something else. Software raid and/or boot parition/MBR/VBR or this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_Boot_Record
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS_parameter_block

However I can't see how any of these would have any impact if you have the OS on a CD.

I was just curious, because I've never seen it, and can't understand how it would work.
 

any hard drive/cd/dvd etc that you install on a PC loads a part of its firmware in a specific area of memory as soon as you turn on the PC. (I think i remember the first hard drive was always at C0800.. I think) so those type of firmwares always look at that address.
boot records MBRs etc have not much to do with the bios partition as they are read only after the bios partition has been accessed.
 

Do you have a link to that. I'd like to read about it.
 
AlbacoreA said:
Do you have a link to that. I'd like to read about it.
Click to expand...


I will try and find something for you. need a bit of time tho..


OK i kinda found something.. have a look at this :
[broken link removed]
I know it does not really answer your question but should give you a hint on the technology of the time.
Will give more links as soon as I can
 
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