Tom's Hardware > Forum > Laptops & Notebooks > General Laptops & Notebooks > Replacement hard drive options for Sony VGN-TXN15p

Replacement hard drive options for Sony VGN-TXN15p

Forum Laptops & Notebooks : General Laptops & Notebooks - Replacement hard drive options for Sony VGN-TXN15p

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lip008   09-18-2009 at 07:41:00 PM

I have a Sony latpop model VGN-TXN15p. I love the little thing and would like to squeeze out some more performance by upgrading the 80gb 4200rpm hard drive. I found a tear down and shouldn't have an issue getting the hard drive out. From there what are my options? I'm assuming the connector is Parallel ATA but not sure if that's what today's netbooks use. Would the 160gb 5400rpm drive in most netbooks be compatible? I'd prefer to use a SSD and see 1.8 SSD's are an option. Whether a conventional HD or SSD I'm unsure of which adapter I would need.

I've also noticed there is a Mini PCI Express port underneath for use with Novatel's Sprint EVDO card. I've taken this card out and plugged in a working 8gb SSD that came from a Dell Mini 9. Windows didn't detect any hardware changes. Disk Management didn't show anything new that needed formatting and Device Manager returned nothing as well. Am I missing something on this step? I'd be ok leaving the 80gb in for storage as it saves me from tearing apart the laptop. I can use something in the Mini PCI Express port to run the OS off of. The 8gb SSD isn't in fat or NTFS format. Could that be a reason it's not being detected in Windows. The bios has jack for options...

Any input is appreciated.

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lip008   09-21-2009 at 04:10:50 PM

WTF.....no suggestions anyone?

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prhone   10-02-2009 at 04:33:57 PM

oh crap i just ordered a ssd for this slot on mine, i have pretty much the same laptop, a vgn-txn17n or so

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prhone   10-02-2009 at 05:25:15 PM

it could be vendor lock out similar to this: http://richud.com/HP-Pavilion-104-Bios-Fix/ or it could be an incompatible slot. I have heard there are several incompatible implementations of the miniPCI-e, but all have the same form factor.

Our computers also have another miniPCI-e slot, the one under the keyboard for the wireless card, try the drive there.

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lip008   10-12-2009 at 04:38:06 PM

Thanx prhone for the reply. I shall try this and move the wifi to bottom. Any luck with what you ordered?

Reply to lip008
prhone   10-13-2009 at 02:09:26 PM

well... I haven't been able to test it yet because the card I ordered is physically too large to fit in the computer without cutting some plastic, which I haven't gotten around to yet. But it doesn't work in the slot on the bottom and neither does the wireless card from under the keyboard, so it might be an incomplete implementation of the slot or it could be vendor strings in the BIOS causing us this grief. It may be possible to modify the BIOS, e.g.: http://macxylo.blogspot.com/2007/1 [...] press.html or http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mjg59/thinkpad/bios.html

I'd really like to try the drive in the slot under the keyboard before mucking around in the BIOS though.

Does your drive fit in the slot under the keyboard?

Reply to prhone
lip008   10-24-2009 at 08:45:58 PM

You know...I didn't try the slot under the keyboard and think it's worth a shot. Thanks for the idea!

Reply to lip008
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