Upgrading Hard Drive on LE1700?

**PaulB** · 04-03-2009, 06:17 PM

With any luck, next week I'll be trying an install on a Samsung Spinpoint N2 HS160JB 160GB drive. As far as I know that's the largest PC compatible ZIF drive. There may be a performance hit as that drive has a 2MB buffer compared to Toshiba's 8MB. We'll see how the Windows Experience Index turns out. The drive is out of production. Might be the largest ZIF unless Toshiba does something with their MK2431GAH to make it PC-compatible.

**Chaos Crafter** · 07-14-2009, 07:30 PM

Typically I didn't find this thread until after I'd bought the 240G toshiba drive for the tablet.

For what it's worth, so far I have managed to get the bios to recognise it, but I can't seem to get it to boot off it.
I used Acronis Backup to duplicate my previous disk to an external drive and to copy back onto the new drive, but so far, no luck.

I'm going to try a clean install of windows 7 tonight.

If anyone has any advice on how to get this to work I'd be delighted to hear it.

**PaulB** · 07-14-2009, 10:29 PM

Try installing a version of Linux if that is a possibility. Linux may recognize it. The 240GB Toshiba is intended for ATA-4 compatibility, I believe, making it incompatible with Windows which requires ATA-6 or ATA-7 compatibility. I think many people that purchase the Toshiba 240GB drive use it to upgrade the iPod Video 5.5 generation which recognizes it! I installed the Samsung HS160JB in the LE1700 successfully and Windows 7 recognizes it. It was documented in another thread.

LE1700 Upgrade: http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/showthread.php?t=36532

**Chaos Crafter** · 07-14-2009, 11:49 PM

Yeah, I wish I'd realised that before I installed.
I'm now hoping to set up Linux to dual-boot to windows, then I'll submit a bug-report for windows 7 to see if I can get them to fix it.

**Chaos Crafter** · 07-21-2009, 08:38 PM

No luck.
Just so others can learn from my mistake, I cannot get the MK2431GAH to act as a boot device for linux or windows. I suspect I could do something with a usb boot, but that's pretty ugly. Time for me to get another drive.
Paul B, did you have any luck with that Samsung Spinpoint N2 HS160JB 160GB? if you did I might try getting one of them, and the 240Gb can go into my ipod.
Drat.

**PaulB** · 07-22-2009, 01:25 AM

Yes I did. The Samsung is out of production but it installed and works fine.

**Chaos Crafter** · 07-22-2009, 07:37 PM

Where on earth did you get that drive - I can't find one out there for love nor money.

**PaulB** · 07-22-2009, 11:05 PM

It's documented in the thread I posted earlier but it came out of a portable 1.8" Apricorn external firewire drive I bought off ebay. I looked very hard for that drive. It's the only device I know that used it. Maybe there's others, who knows?

**MTrosper** · 01-10-2010, 07:06 PM

Hi guys, I have a LE1700 60GB and want to upgrade the HD. I bought a Toshiba MK1214GAH which I was told would work. The drive onboard is a Hitachi Model HTC 426060G8CE00 60GB. The hitachi cable doesn't fit the Toshiba slot. Its too thick and fits a ZIF (zero insertion force ?) with a small plastic chasp. It measures 0.005 in thicker than the Toshiba supplied straight cable. Therefore it won't attach to the Toshiba drive. Any ideas??? I have photos of the Hitachi installed drive and cable.