New Hard Drive, questions and concerns.

Hello, I previously posted asking how to make a USB a boot device, well I figured that out, but unfortunately is was all for not, as I had a bad hard drive, so here I am again!

I am in the market for a new hard drive, but I have some concerns before jumping into anything. I have a Dell Inspiron N5010 laptop. The hard drive it came with was a Toshiba 640gb 5400 rpm Hard drive. The exact model name was "Toshiba MK6465GSX". The closest match to that that I have been able to find on Amazon is a "Toshiba MK6459GSX", also with 640gb and 5400 rpm. The picture of it looks exactly the same as my old one. My concern is how specific do I have to be for it to be compatible with my laptop? Will this one I found on Amazon work with my laptop?

Also, is it true that a 7200 rpm hard drive is better than 5400? My laptop has a good processor and 6 gigs of ram so I'm sure it could handle the increased demand if the 7200 worked at a faster speed. I'd like to be able to upgrade to a better hard drive if at all possible. Not better as in bigger, but faster. 640gb is more than enough for me.

And lastly, the question I have that concerns Windows 7! I plan on reloading windows 7 on my new hard drive, since I assume it won't come preloaded with windows on it (And even if it does I'd probably swipe it to get rid of the bloat ware, which a lot of people recommended). If I buy a new hard drive will the Windows CD key on the bottom of my laptop still work with it? I've figured out how to make a USB a boot device and do all that jazz. But will my key be able to activate it since it's a new hard drive?

Thank you for any help you can give. :)

Everything you need is here: Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

If you can afford it I would invest in an SSD which gives much better performance and noticeably faster speeds.

If not I'd go with the 7200 rpm after confirming it will run on your hardware.

gregrocker said:

Everything you need is here: Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

If you can afford it I would invest in an SSD which gives much better performance and noticeably faster speeds.

If not I'd go with the 7200 rpm after confirming it will run on your hardware.

That...Didn't answer anything.

Edit: To be more specific, nowhere did it state how to determine if a hard drive will be compatible with a certain model or not, it doesn't state if the CD key on the bottom of a laptop will work on a new hard drive. These are very simple questions to someone who knows the answer, it doesn't require much more than a yes/no answer. No reason to start promoting your link that answers nothing relating to my question.

You have a Dell you want to clean reinstall. I provided you with a tutorial written based on helping thousands of users get perfect clean reinstalls of factory OEM. It even includes the latest official Win7 installer with a tool to burn it to DVD or write to flash stick. Do you not need this at all?

I also recommended getting an SSD for best performance. I'm sorry I do not know if your laptop can run a 7200 rpm HD or I would have answered that. Someone else surely will.

Yes you can use the Product Key as shown in the tutorial to reactivate with a new HD.

gregrocker said:

You have a Dell you want to clean reinstall. I provided you with a tutorial written based on helping thousands of users get perfect clean reinstalls here for three years. It even includes the latest official Win7 installer with a tool to burn it to DVD or write to flash stick. Do you not need this at all?

I also recommended getting an SSD for best performance. I'm sorry I do not know if your laptop can run a 7200 rpm HD or I would have answered that. Someone else surely will.

You'll last about five minutes around here if you get snarky with those trying to help you.

I stated in the OP that I already know how to re-install windows using a USB, thanks to your post... that you linked in my last thread... I just wanted to know how do I determine if a hard drive will work for a certain model. Is it really nit picky when it comes to accepting other hard ware? Or are hard drives generally interchangable. Are there links around here that would relate to that? Or should I just start googling like usual.

I have no idea what an SSD is. And I also asked if the CD KEY that came with my laptop will work on a different hard drive than the one that came with my laptop. I am not sure if the CD key is like tagged for that hard drive, to prevent multiple activations or something. So it kinda worries me.

I answered your questions above the best I could, just as when I helped you for almost an entire day a week ago. After the way you spoke to me tonight someone else will have to help you. Good luck.

Raindeux said:

Is it really nit picky when it comes to accepting other hard ware? Or are hard drives generally interchangable...............And I also asked if the CD KEY that came with my laptop will work on a different hard drive than the one that came with my laptop

I have not researched your particular Dell, but it's highly unlikely it is nit picky about hard drives---you would need to ensure you are buying a laptop sized drive rather than a desktop drive (which would not even fit).

The Product Key is tied to the motherboard in the Dell, not to the hard drive. If you reinstall to a new hard drive, you will have to reactivate the new installation. There is a slight chance you will have to speak with Microsoft to do the activation, but likely not. Hard drives fail all the time and your Windows license in no way prevents you from replacing drives.

SSDs will make a night and day difference in general operation, but they are generally expensive and relatively low capacity.

If you have to ask basic questions...don't snap back at someone trying to help.

No, Windows will not come with your new hard drive. You will have to clean install, as you have determined. The reason no one answered about your hard drive is that you are WAY overthinking compatibility. You don't need to match the model number. SATA is SATA. Any laptop SATA hard drive will work in your laptop. The key is finding the one that works the fastest. If your laptop and drive support SATA III, then get a new SATA III drive. If the SATA controller is only able to work at SATA II speeds, then either an SATA II or SATA III hard drive will work and run at the same speed. That is all listed in your laptop's documentation. The specs of your current driver will also tell you what to go with.

7200 rpm drives will be faster but will also lower your battery time. That's the trade-off, so you decide which is more important.

Yes, it will activate. You replaced a hard drive...nothing illegal about that. The key is tagged for that computer, not the hard drive.

I'm not sure who's feeding you info to develop all of your theories....but just relax, be polite to people helping you, and listen to what the posters on here say.

A 7200 RPM hard drive may consume slightly more power than your 5400 RPM one. I doubt that it's an issue. If you're looking for someone here who has replaced a drive in your exact model of Dell laptop with a faster HD, there may be no one. Dell tech support may have advice, but I'm not optimistic about that. (When I've dealt with them in the past, they only supported exact configurations that they sold.)

Have you checked support.dell.com? There are fairly detailed instructions there on replacing a drive. (Like a lot of notebooks, this model uses and adapter, which Dell calls an "interposer".)

As others have remarked, Microsoft will permit you to activate Windows on the new HD. There is no Windows license that is so restrictive as to not allow that sort of repair.

What are you using as a source for the OS installation media?