Hello,
I have a Dell Inspiron 5100, P2.4, 768Meg ram. It originally came with a 30 Gig 5400RPM HD. After the drive failed on me, I purchased a Toshiba Travelstar 80 Gig 7200 RPM. Well, the Dell won't support 7200 RPM drives according to Dell tech support, and it would get so hot it shut down intermittantly. I have now purchased a 5400RPM 80 gig drive and need to clone the 7200 to the 5400. The 7200 still works , just unstable. Anyone know of any reliable freeware to clone one drive to the other so I can go back to the 5400RPM. I was told by Dell this will eliminate the overheating problem and stabilize the machine. Everything else works great. Thanks for any advice!
Alarmman

you need to have a media bay or usb case for the 7200 drive. then put the 5400 drive in the laptop and try this tool:
http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/HDClone_Free_Edition/hdclonefree.html

regards, mscrx

Dell won't support 7200rpm drives? horsecrap. ANY laptop can handle that speed. Your tech support is full of it. DELL however, tends to use PROPRIETARY parts, so yes, you may need to purchase a DELL drive. SPEED of the drive is not the issue. This is due to power configurations. So your tech is WRONG and needs to learn his JOB.


You need to CLONE your drive.

Dell Inpsiron 5100 with 7200RPM drive, too hot!!

It wasn' that the Inspiron wouldn't supoort the 7200 RPM drive, it just produced so much heat, it would shut down intermittantly, and I was also getting a lot of error messages. Dell said they did not have any 7200 RPM drives on their "approved" supported drives and recommended going back to a 5400. It was obvious by touch that the drive area got VERY hot after running for any length of time. Thanks again for everyone's support!
Alarmman

if a 7200 produces that much heat where it is an issue with the latop, then it is a very poorly designed laptop.

I have a 7200rpm fujitsu drive in my D820 and a 7200 hitachi in my m60.
both were available on the dell order web page. donno about inspiron!?