How do I replace a storage hard drive that's built into my laptop?

I have a Dell Precision M4500 laptop that I bought a couple of years ago. It has a 64GB SSD with 64bit Win7 on it, and a 500GB internal 5400rpm Toshiba storage HD linked to the SSD. Lately I've noticed that the Toshiba drive is starting to click noticeably, which means it's probably time for a replacement.

The question is if I go out and buy a new 500GB or 1TB drive, is it just plug & play and the OS will just detect it automatically? Or will I need to install some kind of Intel storage drivers and do some additional tweaking?

I've never done this before so any help here would be most appreciative.

If your new drive comes with any software, I'm not sure I'd install any of it. See if you can get by with whatever Windows wants to supply.

I particularly wouldn't be likely to install any backup software that might be included.

This might be helpful,

derekimo, thanks for the video. At least I now know how to open it.

~

ignatzatsonic said:

If your new drive comes with any software, I'm not sure I'd install any of it. See if you can get by with whatever Windows wants to supply.

I particularly wouldn't be likely to install any backup software that might be included.

No it will be a bare bones HD, probably a Western Digital Scorpio Blue in either 500GB or 1TB. I've had good luck with those. So far.

It's just that I've never replaced a drive with this kind of set-up before, where you have two internal drives that need to be recognized by one another.

I know I'll have to format it using Disk Management with NTFS, but I just want to make sure I don't need any kind of storage drivers, the kind Intel have on my machine, even though I don't have a RAID set-up here.

Any additional input would be most welcome.