Putting in a new Samsung HD into Dell XPS400

I have decided to install a Samsung 750 gig Sata HD in my Dell XPS 400 replacing the 200 GIG HD that came with it...

After searching Major Geeks to find out if there were any horror stories other people had from trying to do this I found nothing other than one guy said the PC did not find the Dell OS install disk (the disk that comes with the PC that you would use as the boot disk).

So the question I have is...
If I install this new HD and the same thing happens to me, or something else catastrophic...do I have the option of re installing the present HD? ...and if so will I simply be able to plug the cables back in, turn it on and it will work like it does now... Or will attempting to install another HD do something weird to the PC...?

Signed: GWB (Geek Wanabee)

 

Often, companies like Dell Gateway and HP put a separate partition on the hard drive with a recovery image on it so you can start again from factory settings by calling up the image. If you remove the hard drive and thats all you have to get your system back, your out of luck. Unless you have a dell cd that will load up your operating system for you on the new drive, your best bet may be to add the new drive as a second drive and either copy the 200 gig to the new drive or keep both, copying over all your saved files from the old to the new to make more room on the 200gig.

I have never had a pc that was not built by me, or much experience with OEM ones, so I'm not the best person to be advising you. Maybe someone else will jump in.

 

Thanks for taking the time to respond..

So does that mean if i install the 750 gig HD as the second (slave) drive, I can even see the files dell puts on?

 

I don't know what your asking? Installing a second drive has little to do with seeing dell files. I'm unfamilar with Samsung hard drives I don't know if they come with a disk for cloning or not. If they do you can install the new drive (there are no slaves with sata drives, each has its own connection, unlike ide ribbons with two drives each) and use the utilities that came with it to clone the old drive to the new. During the cloning, if it shows you more than one partition to copy over, then it is probably copying the dell backup partition as well. To be safe try and keep your original drive as a backup until your sure the new one is the way you want.

 

Much to my amazement that makes sense...sata drives sound easier to install than the old ones. again thank you for taking the time to respond, wish me luck...
R

 

Why replace why not just add I personaly never have to much storage

 

I had a horrible Malware infection from a monster called Malware Protect 2008. After several attempts at getting rid of it I re installed windows thinking I could totally format the drive. After installing windows 5 times I finally realized that it wasn't going to do that. It did appear to cure the malware problem but it left a lot of residual programs of which none of them work and they didnt show up in control panel to uninstall. I went into program folder and simply deleted them all. Everything appears to be working just fine except now on the boot up it hangs on a black screen and shows 2 versions of windows prompting me to select one of them. Both are windows MCE so not sure why. 2 selections were there before only it used to say Windows professional or windows MCE which is what I have. It will select the OS by itself after 20 seconds so I guess I should let well enough alone.

In hindsight the whole thing has been an unpleasant experience. I downloaded Spyware Doctor which did nothing and they never sent me the confirmation email so not I am out the money and program doesn't work...live and learn.

 

Did you reinstall windows from an actual windows disc...or from the recovery partition that dell made. If you did this from a disc, did you...

1) do a repair install or a new/clean install.

If you are indeed doing a new/clean install, did you...

1) Choose the correct partition.

2) format that correct partition that you are attempting to reinstall.

BTW...did you try getting help at the Malware Forum?

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=35

 

1) I did a clean Install

Q. Choose the correct partition.
A The other 2 partitions were considerably smaller, one wasn't even large enough to hold Windows. I did the 1st install on the partition that was and quickly determined that it was not big enough to hold windows and the programs so the last time I over wrote the main partition.

Q2) format that correct partition that you are attempting to reinstall.
A. I dont recall seeing that option even though I installed this 5 times because I screwed it up so many times. I did see the option of clean install or repair in which i chose clean install

BTW...did you try getting help at the Malware Forum?
Yes and no ... I read about the Malware I had and the answers sounded like this was a bad program. My HD was getting really full after two years of heavy use anyway so I thought it was a good time to clean it and start over. No regrets it runs pretty smooth now...

 

I wish Dell would make sure every new buyer knows about the "hidden partion" they have. Since you tried to install Windows on the old hard drive you may not have the "restore to factory new option" buy pressing F12 and startup.I would TRy the F12 to see if it works. Just copy and backup ALL data before doing so! It will ERASE EVERYTHING and be just like starting it up for the first time again. If it won't let you just do a complete reinstall and formate the entire hard drive.And I'm not sure if you have to press Ctrl and F12 or just F12. I ALWAYS reformat my dell out of the box.They go MUCH faster that way!