installing a new HD in an Inspirion 8600

My hard drive went south. A trip to Fry's and an hour later, I've got a new drive to install. Does anyone know of an FAQ or "by the numbers" how to do it site anywhere to help with some pix and tips? I don't mind having a go at disassembling my machine to a point but I'm wondering just how hard this is to do. I'll have to reinstall XP home edition and I have the disc and am hoping it will recognize it's original mother board ID and allow me to proceed. Any thoughts appreciated.

TIA, mitch

 

Very simple process, assuming you have IDE hard drives. If you don't know what that is, they are the hard drives that use cables like this:

http://www.ateck.com/catalog/cabws3h_small.jpg
Post back if you're using a different type of HDD.

To install the new hard drive, we do the following:

1. Set the drive as 'Master'. There is a little plastic jumper that does this. A diagram or labels on the drive will show you how to set it.
2. Install the new drive. This involves connecting a power cable, and the data cable. Since this is master, it will be on the end of the cable furthest from the motherboard.

That's it! The hard drive is installed, and should be detected in BIOS (post back if you need instructions on checking this). You could also try setting your OLD drive to 'Slave' and putting it on the other cable's connector. This should allow you to browse the drive's contents once you have Windows installed on the new drive.

Good luck!

 

is there an "access" pannel I just remove to do this or do I need to remove the entire back cover of the laptop?

 

Oh yuck...didn't realize it was a laptop.

Yes, usually there is a little switch that will unlock your hard drive, allowing it to slide out. Sometimes this is a thumb button, other times, it is screwed in. Take a look at the bottom of the laptop. There are usually diagrams showing how to remove the HDD.