Hello,
I have an old-ish laptop whose hard drive has come to fail. Or at least, I get an error at start-up saying failure is imminent.
But I really like this laptop, so I'm thinking of replacing the hard drive. The model is a Sony Vaio VGN-SR520G.
I googled a bit, and from what I can tell, the laptop uses a type of hard drive called "SATA." Something like that:
http://www.drivesolutions.com/cgi/s...ems&kind=sol&pos=0&type=itemid&itemid=sol3600
I'm thinking of purchasing the 750GB, 7200RPM drive for $105.
My questions for you experts are:
1) Is this the correct model of hard drive for my laptop?
2) How hard (pun definitely intended) will installing this new hard drive be? Is it "unscrew things and plug things in" sort of process, or is it more involved? I am, you can probably tell, not the most experienced with computers (but I'm not completely hopeless).
Finally, 3) I'm guessing I'll need to install a new OS. I don't mind losing any of the files that are on the laptop now (there's nothing on there that's critical that I hadn't already backed up), but I'm guessing that buying Windows is going to be expensive. My friend raves about Ubuntu, and I've played around with it on an even-older laptop. Any thoughts / suggestions on this?
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you a thousand times in advance!
I have an old-ish laptop whose hard drive has come to fail. Or at least, I get an error at start-up saying failure is imminent.
But I really like this laptop, so I'm thinking of replacing the hard drive. The model is a Sony Vaio VGN-SR520G.
I googled a bit, and from what I can tell, the laptop uses a type of hard drive called "SATA." Something like that:
http://www.drivesolutions.com/cgi/s...ems&kind=sol&pos=0&type=itemid&itemid=sol3600
I'm thinking of purchasing the 750GB, 7200RPM drive for $105.
My questions for you experts are:
1) Is this the correct model of hard drive for my laptop?
2) How hard (pun definitely intended) will installing this new hard drive be? Is it "unscrew things and plug things in" sort of process, or is it more involved? I am, you can probably tell, not the most experienced with computers (but I'm not completely hopeless).
Finally, 3) I'm guessing I'll need to install a new OS. I don't mind losing any of the files that are on the laptop now (there's nothing on there that's critical that I hadn't already backed up), but I'm guessing that buying Windows is going to be expensive. My friend raves about Ubuntu, and I've played around with it on an even-older laptop. Any thoughts / suggestions on this?
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you a thousand times in advance!
