One of the most common failures in a laptop is the hard drive, it is also one
of the few components you can upgrade. Laptop hard
drives fail more often than desktop hard drives. Reason: simple your laptop
absorbs more punishment than a desktop. You move your laptop continuously, where
you go the laptop goes. I know you are careful with how you handle it but still
it gets banged around.
Laptop hard drives are located in a bay in the laptop, Most have some shock
resistance built into the bay. Some hard drives are easier to remove and replace
than others. I have seen some hard drives under the keyboard, completely inside
the case where you have to take the case apart to get to the hard drive. You
will have to go to the manufactures web site and do a search for your computer
if the documentation that came with it doesn't show you where and how to remove
the hard drive. Acer's are one of the 'no documentation' type of computers, all
the manuals are ON the hard drive, what do you do if it has failed?
Once you have located the hard drive and understand how to remove it you just
reverse the procedure to reinstall the replacement.
A word of caution:ESD
will damage the hard drive
the same as dropping it!
One thing I would suggest you do is to make a couple of images of your hard
drive partitions. If you have a hard drive failure all your data will be lost,
with an image of the OS partition and the data partitions (if your installer had
the foresight to make two partitions on the hard drive) and a good back up, the
failure of a hard drive will not be as catastrophic. At one time when you sent a
computer into IBM for repair they would wipe the hard drive and reinstall the
OS, IBM has since sold off most of their laptop business so I don't know it this
is still true. To save reinstalling all of your programs, finding those pesky cd's and keys you could restore your computer at least to the point of the image
and then complete the restore with the backup.
In conclusion the hard drive
is fairly easy to remove and reinstall, you need to be aware that it is the most
vulnerable component in your laptop. Your data is the most important thing on
the laptop
back it up regularly.
Make an image
of the hard drive, if you have important or hard to find programs you
will always have a copy of them, also you will not have to reinstall them if you
have to replace or upgrade
the hard drive.
If you have a hard drive failure and have to buy a new hard
drive I suggest you check out the new SSD for a replacement. SSD (Solid
State Drive) are non mechanical drives that have an exceedingly long life
time and very low failure rate.
Would you like to have more information about laptop backups? This site has
some good tips about
hard drive back up.
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with any publication not all information is available due to space, time, or
subject constraints.
If you have a question that you did not find the answer
on this web site you a can
ask your question here and we will endeavor to get you the most up to date
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