My dad's laptop (~4 yr old HP) hard drive bit the dust. He's a truck driver and uses it mostly for map's and such. What's the best place to find a budget hard drive? I know the laptop drives are pricey, so could he use an external hard drive instead?

Try this site. It's pretty good for locating things. They have an area just for laptop/notebook hardrives.

http://www.pricewatch.com/

I saw a 20g for $40 just at quick glance.

:agree:

However, I use www.pricegrabber.com

Searching for something like "notebook drive" or "laptop drive" will get you good results. Some things to watch out for:

1) You'll probably want a 5400 RPM or faster drive, NOT a 4200 RPM.
2) If you use Pricegrabber, only purchase from vendors that have a 4-star rating or better after at least 50 transactions or more.
3) Make sure your drive is a 2.5" wide drive (a lot of times it will say 2.5LP for 2.5" Low Profile drive)

Here is a sample of a good drive I found - It's a Seagate Momentus, which I personally put a lot of faith in:

http://www.foxtec.com/products/view.asp?ID=4903

That's a 40GB drive @ 5400RPM and the seek time is 12ms, which is really close to a standard hard drive.

As for some other places I would look before buying, I would check out:

http://www.unityelectronics.com/
http://www.mwave.com
http://www.compuvest.com
http://www.newegg.com
http://www.zipzoomfly.com

All of these stores have exceptional prices, excellent customer service and you're not going to beat their prices anywhere in the "real world". It will take some research time on your part, but ...

On another note, if you need schematics on how to replace the hard drive in that computer, please give me the exact model number and I'll get the service manual for it from HP Support. I have an inside line.

Good Luck :).

Will this work for him? 20g ought to be fine, he just plays poker and loads maps on it.
MFG-Seagate - Model-ST92011A - Momentus-Series
Capacity:20.0 GB
Speed:5400 rpm
Average Seek Time:12 ms
Cylinders:1023
Heads:256
Sectors:63

Far as I can tell, yes that should do ya.

:cool:

Looks good. Let me know if you need the repair/maintenance for the laptop - just need the model number to get the PDF file you'll need.

This is what my sis emailed me on it.


The Model number on top of the computer (I think it's the right one) is: HP Pavilion xf145

The one on the bottom is hp pavilion ze1000 series

The HP Serial number and MFG# isTW20909001

Cool. I'll try to get a service manual PDF back to you ASAP.

Nevermind - here it is :)
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/lpi05728.pdf

I actually found it at the website, didn't hafta pull any strings on this one. :D

Have fun!

Thanks, I'm probably gonna let my brother handle it.:lol: