Inspiron 6400 laptop PATA or SATA?

[Clunk]

Im looking to get one of these from dell, but want to replace the hard drive myself, so does anyone know if they use PATA or SATA hard drives in them?

Also, does anyone know if there is any benefit in having a 7200rpm drive in a laptop? Battery life isnt a problem.

ta

[dave87]

SATA

7200rpm will always be quicker for seek times, and burst transfer, but sustained there is very little difference. I haven't had any problems with the 5200rpm drive in mine, but I'm looking to replace it with a 100gb 7200rpm drive anyway

Dave

[Clunk]

Cheers Dave,

Do you also happen to know if, when you replace the blank drive and reinstall from a dell windows disc, if it installs the restore partition? Im not fussed about it really, but it is pretty handy

[dave87]

It doesn't no, but it you take an image of the current hard disk you can transfer the hidden partition, and it should do the same

[Clunk]

Yep, will do that thanks

[dave87]

Oh, one final thing - if you are using ghost then you have to tell it to back it up - otherwise it will only go with the ones assigned drive letters in windows

Dave

[Clunk]

Ive got Acronis true image, I think that ought to do it