I have an older VAIO (PCG-8J1L), which has only a 30GB HD. I’d like something in the 250 range, but the first one I purchased doesn’t fit (Western Digital). In this model, the HD is on a removable cassette (apparently unlike most VAIOs). How do I find the right model?
I would also like to replace the CPU (but probably not immediately), and I’d prefer not to pay Sony’s price for that, either. Still, having the information available would be nice. Can anyone help me on either of these?
There’s not going to be any real (or meaningful) option to upgrade the CPU in a laptop. If you’ve maxed out the RAM and the performance doesn’t get better, you should be in the market for a new laptop. There are plenty of laptops on the market in the $500 range which are quite usable, and even moreso if you add RAM (maxing out at 3-4GB).
Presumably you need the extra space for media files? How do you feel about an external drive? Otherwise if you replace the HD, you’ll need to rebuild the OS (and I hope you have disks to do it). What do you mean the first one you bought didn’t fit? If it was a laptop drive, most likely you need to remove the caddy from the original drive, and put the new drive in it before you install it.
The “cassette” is simply a carrier shell surrounding the drive to allow for easy extraction and should be able to be disassembled and used for a new drive. Re drives be sure you are getting the right interface. A 30 gig drive will still have an IDE interface and most new notebook drives are SATA interfaces, although there are still IDE 2.5 drives available up to around 250 gigs capacity.
FWIW putting a 250 into an older notebook is sort of a waste. You would be better off putting the money toward a new notebook or getting an external 2.5 drive you can use with a new notebook.
Laptop hard disks are commonly fastened to a small plastic adapter or caddy to make inserting them easier and avoid bending the pins on the back. So long as you’ve got the right interface type (PATA I imagine, not SATA), I’d be monocle-popping shocked if you couldn’t do as Aestivalis suggests and simply fasten the new drive to the caddy and shove it in.
CPU wise you’re pretty much SOL. Some are upgradeable, but it’s never going to be worth it. Depending on your current RAM, upping that is much more likely to pass a cost/benefit analysis.
Clearly, I didn’t phrase my inquiry well. The pin arrangement on the new HD I bought was different from the Hitachi, and didn’t match up to the receptacle. I thus assume that it must be an IDE, so I don’t think that’s the problem.
As for the CPU, I bought this thing used (reconditioned), and it’s a study, reliable machine. However, the original purchaser went for a large screen (16", which cost a pretty penny about the time this one came out), and went for the minimum in functional areas. I need a big screen (mentioned in a response on another thread). I couldn’t possibly afford a new laptop that had both the screen size I need, a decent amount of RAM, and other stuff. On Social Security, I have to budget things in advance, which is why I mentioned a CPU upgrade as a future want, not a present one.