Upgrading an older laptop from HDD to SSD, got a few questions!

[W5BRM]

I have an older Dell Inspiron 7352 13 inch laptop I'm wanting to uppgrade. I've been looking over specs on replacement SSD's. Currently the HDD installed is a ToshibaMQ01ABF050 500gb 5400rpm The drive I am most interested in is a SanDisk - Ultra 512GB Internal SATA Solid State Drive for Laptops. Looking at the specs, I notice a small differential in the size of the drives. The Toshiba is 2.7 inches wide and the Sandisk is 2.8 inches wide. Will this Sandisk be a bit too big or do you think there is a bit of wiggle room in the Inspirons drive bay?

Also, What hardware will I need to perform the migration. I'm not sure what kind of dock for the SSD I should get. I've watched a few videos but none of them really address the docking hardware.

Thanks

B

[KD8TUT]

The mounts internally are usually rubberized so my *guess* is that you'll be able to get it into the laptop.

I've not worked on that model. But I've worked on Dell laptops. You might need a set of torx. Some of them are phillips.

Splitting the case is always an adventure if you haven't done it before (if that is needed). If the laptop has a side/bottom bay for the drive with an access plate or door- it may be as few as two screws.

Good luck!

[W5BRM]

OK Thanks. I already have a guide on cracking the case. Upon further instpection though, I think I can't use the Sandisk I want as it is a SATA III and the drive I'll be replacing is SATA. Don't think they are compatible. I have been researching the laptop but can't find any info on if the SATA port in the laptop will support SATA III.

[KD8TUT]

OK Thanks. I already have a guide on cracking the case. Upon further instpection though, I think I can't use the Sandisk I want as it is a SATA III and the drive I'll be replacing is SATA. Don't think they are compatible. I have been researching the laptop but can't find any info on if the SATA port in the laptop will support SATA III.

It's backward compatible...

[N1LAF]

As 'TUT says, its compatible.

If interested, couple of links...

Link to your manuals, service manuals, drivers, etc: https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...laptop/manuals

Looks like three Philips screws holding the bracket in place. Service manual has pictures and step by step instructions. You will see an improvement on boot up.

SATA, SATA II, SATA III (Sandisk): https://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/d...i-and-sata-iii

[W5BRM]

OK Thanks for the reply. Ended up going with a SATA I Sandisk 480gb drive I have another even older Asus laptop that I can toss this one into when i get a faster SATA III model. Gonna be a month or 2 for that. Thanks for the info and links!

[W5BRM]

Followup question. So far as I can read, the guides on the dell site say nothing about replacing and migrating the OS. Anyone have any instruction on the bios and how to designate the new SSD as the primary boot drive?


Edit: Success! Got the OS W8.1 migrated. Got the new drive installed! Everything is working. I did a factory reset on the OS before I did the migration. Old bootup time was around 103 seconds from power push to full activation. That is now about 8 seconds! MASSIVE improvement!

I had an issue with the factory reset and I was unable to perform any windows update. At All! I remember having this issue when i bought the laptop brand new in 2015. I solved it then but didn't keep any notes. Anyone have any idea on how to get windows update running?

[n6hcm]

your windows installation doesn't match its registration (because you changed a significant bit of hardware) so you probably can't use windows update until you re-register the install with microsoft. do you have the key (a bunch of characters XXXXX-YYYYY-ZZZZZ-AAAAA-BBBBB) from the laptop where the os was originally installed ... you may need this.

i don't have win 8 anymore so i can't walk you through how to do this but i think i've given enough information here so you can find a decent solution by searching the internet ...

[W5BRM]

Actually I went down a rabbit hole on microsoft community website.

Turns out, I had to manually install July 2016 update roll up and there was a few prerequisite updates to even get that. Ended up working backwards and then had to reinstall everything in the right order. Quite a fun time...lol!

Anyway, updates are installing and all is well.

As to the registration, that's the 1st thing I looked at after the first boot. All the numbers matched up. So I'm not real sure MS looks at drive sources on 8.1. Might be different on W10. I'll figure that out in a month or two when I upgrade my hp 15.

Edit: this was upgrading my hdd to ssd, not migrating OS to another laptop.