More HD and memory on laptop

[frostyspecs]

I am thinking of increasing the HDD on my laptop from 40 to 250gb. The cost from PC World is drive �50 and Labour �50, could I do the Job myself. I am quite DIY minded providing instructions are clear. On the memory mine was increased by PCW a year back to 750. I want to go to the max for my laptop of 1000. I may have to go to PCW for this as I believe there are only two slots available and mine already has a 250 and 500mb.
All this is to avoid paying �400 for a new LTTIA

[rojash]

Fitting a new drive is dead easy. The fiddly part is transferring all you existing stuff to the new drive. Does their cost include the transfer of your entire working system?

You can do this yourself: all you need is a USB 2.5" drive caddy (6-12 quid). Put the new drive in the drive caddy and connect via USB
Use a disk imaging program such as Acronis (or google for free ones) to create an image of your original hard disk on the new drive.
Swap out the old drive with the new one, and away you go.
Put the old drive in the caddy, reformat it, and you now have a handy external drive as well.

[VHG]

Replacing memory on a laptop is one of the easiest jobs you can do.

You can run a program here to see what exact memory you need.

http://www.crucial.com/

If your laptop has 2 slots then you would need to remove the existing 250Mb one and replace it with a 500Mb one.

You can leave the existing 500Mb one in there.

Note that sometimes using "mismatched" memory can cause problems, so if you want to be certain it will work (and it is not too expensive) you could buy 2 new 500Mb memory cards.

I have to say replacing your hard drive, AND copying all your existing data across is NOT an easy job if you have never done it before.

Whatever you do make sure all your important data IS BACKED UP TO CD OR DVD before you, or anyone else, tries to replace the hard disk.

[VHG]

You could always buy one of those external hard drive that plug into your USB port.

That would save replacing the hard drive in your computer.

[Ethel]

Upgrading the memory is very easy too - buy a 500mb and get rid of the 250.

Use the scanner here to determine exactly what sort of RAM you need - it is your choice where you buy it from:
http://www.crucial.com/uk/

It is simply a matter of taking the 250 out and pushing the new one in very firmly.
http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/install-l aptop-memory.htm

I admire you for extending the life of your laptop like this but quite frankly I wouldn't bother. Any laptop around the �300 mark is going to be a lot better in all areas of performance than yours - I think yours has to be around 5 or 6 years old. There is more to a computer than hard drive and RAM and increasing RAM is pointless if your processor can't handle it - I don't think you'd see much difference from 750 to 1000.

Tesco is currently repricing their stock of laptops so the products for sale on their website is quite limited, but soon you may be spoilt for choice in the under �300 mark.

This 2gb RAM, 250GB hard drive for under �340, for example:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152652

[Ethel]

Crossed with VHG there, apologies

[ACtheTROLL]

agree the fitment is a piece of p ... dead easy
(just watch out for the screws - they never quite fit the driver ... and you don't want to strip the head)

two concerns
(you know the max ram)

If the HDD was originally 40Gb - we must be talking about a reasonably old machine - what's the max hard disk size?
some older machines can't read more than 137Gb (LBA + Int13)
some can be fixed with a bios update ... some can't.

the external HDD is probably a better (at least safer) option ... Operating system + progs - all storage to USB

UNLESS you only have USB1.1 in which case it will be horribly slow.