laptop\harddrive

[maddog_usa]

Gretz,All
Well i have a dilemma got a compaq presario 1400 notebook i'm upgrading the ram,but want to upgrade the harddrive to, the hard drive is only a six giger. my intension's are to make it a portable dvd player.
But i'm not to sure on how to get the harddrive out, i figured out how to get the dvdrom out and add the ram but no clue on the harddrive.
Well any advice would be great full.
thankx,maddog

[Chewy]

with only 8MB of shared video memory, It's going to have hard time running an OS and playing dvd files

[maddog_usa]

Gretz,Chewy
Well it came with a dvd-rom but it only has 64 megs of ram i can upgrade it to 320meg total.
So you are saying if my dvd's are sitting on the hard drive to be played it will not handle it with the ram upgrade and a quicker 8meg cache 7200rpm dirve
Please advise?
I did figure out the harddrive removal.
Gretz,maddog

[Chewy]

what OS are you going to try to run?

hard drive speed and cache are not critical when it takes an hour and a half to play 4 gigs

cpu and video will be the bottlenecks

[maddog_usa]

Gretz,chewy
plan on XP pro or could leave ME on it.

[Chewy]

I try to have 16 megs video, a gighz of cpu for xp even optimized for performance

W2K for lamer systems and 98se for even worse

I wouldn't spend any money on that laptop

[spuddog]

I have to dis-agree. While everyone would like to have a faster cpu and more ram, Older computers can still be quite servicable. I have an IBM A20M wilh a P3-700 and 512 ram. I run XP-pro. It does everything I need fine, not real fast. It play dvd's and video very well. You should watch how much you spend upgrading, but I hate to see people automatically throw away older machines.

[maddog_usa]

Gretz,spuddog
Well the upgrade cost is about 130.00 to 145.00 but i have nothing invested in the laptop it was a freebie.
It's a 600mhz cel cpu my upgrades were going to be a 256meg pc133 which is max cap on ram would make it 320meg total hard drive a seagate 80gig 7200rpm 8meg cache drive.
Well i like your thinking spuddog well i'm still debating the upgrades tho.
Thankx,maddog

[petsbug]

I agree with Chewy, new build low end notebooks couldn't be too far from your intended upgrade expense. Just add few quids and you might have a spanking new LT with better build and specs to be a portable DVD player. Just a thought.