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A few questions before I buy this laptop

Tags:
  • Laptops
  • SSD
  • Hard Drives
Last response: in Laptop General Discussion
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September 15, 2014 6:10:44 PM

This is the laptop i'm looking to buy for when I travel home from university.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/...

Only, I think that it would be a wise move to buy a 128GB SSD to improve performance. What I wanted to know is, will I be able to just take the back off and replace the HDD with the SSD? also in the future will I be able to upgrade the RAM? I understand that some manufacturers have started soldering their RAM to the motherboard?
Also, any suggestions on some software to clone the windows 8 on the HDD onto the SSD?
Thanks

More about : questions buy laptop

September 15, 2014 8:42:32 PM

If you just swap out the existing hard drive, and put in a new one, you won't have an OS. Need to clone it before installation.
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a b D Laptop
September 16, 2014 8:40:08 AM

I will answer the questions in the order you have asked them

1. I don't think you can take the back of but I am not sure
2. I think the ram is soldered on. This is the max by the looks of it
3. I don't know of any software sorry
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a b D Laptop
September 16, 2014 10:15:05 AM

I did what you want to do but thew machine had 2 drive bays and i cloned the SSD and moved the HD to the 2nd bay. I used Acronis True image. But there are free cloning software packages available.

By boot times increase 2 to 3 times after adding a SSD.
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a c 467 D Laptop
September 16, 2014 10:56:31 AM

The following link leads you to HP's service manual for the HP Pavilion 13 series laptop.

http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAG...

According to the manual the laptop has two SO-DIMM slots which means RAM is not soldered into the motherboard. You can install an additional stick of 4GB RAM later on.

The manual shows you how to take apart the laptop if you wish to replace parts. Yes, the hard drive can be swapped for a SSD. Some SSD drives will come with cloning software. However, in the event the one you want to buy does not come with any cloning software then you need to do a Google search for one to buy or a free one. I have never cloned a hard drive so I can't really recommend any specific software to you.
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a b D Laptop
September 16, 2014 11:08:17 AM

Yes when I bought my SSD i bought a Kit. The kit contained the software and a USB external drive case. So i just placed the drive I wanted to clone in the external and booted with the software. I remember the first time I tried it pc pc didnt recognise the external USB drive. Then I remembered the USB i was using was 3.0 and I figured the external drive was USB 2.0 and when I switched USB ports it saw the drive. I cloned the drive no probel at all and then I moved the old HD to the second bay. T

Then I purchased a larger SSD and cloned it from the older SSD. Then a 3rd time I went from a 750 GB HD to a 1 TB. All three time it worked like a charm. Just the bigger the dirves I cloned the longer it took.
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a b D Laptop
September 19, 2014 9:34:41 AM

Answering your second question I used Acronis True Image software to clone my drives. The are free cloning applications out there. Try download.com and you will see how popular the free products are
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