How to Replace A Hard Drive in HP Laptops

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Need to replace hard drive in HP laptops

Many hp laptop users may have doubts about how to replace the laptop's hard drive. When we use the hp computers for office or life, we keep storing our data like documents, photos, audio and video, and the computer disk space becomes smaller and smaller. Or many hp laptop users buy their computers with HDDs, and now they want to replace the disks with faster SSDs to improve the computer's performance. So how can we upgrade the hp laptop hard drive without reinstalling Windows OS and losing data?

Preparations before replacing the hard disk

1. The new HDD or SSD to replace the old one: Choose the hard drive suitable for our hp laptops.
2. SATA-USB adapter: If your hp laptops have only one hard drive bay, you need a SATA-USB adapter to connect the new hard drive to the computer.
3. Hard disk cloning software for HP computers: Migrating data from an old hard drive to a new SSD or HDD requires a professional disk cloning software (unless you have the patience to reinstall the system and then copy and paste files manually), which will save your valuable time and effort as well as improve the data's transfer speed and integrity.

How to replace HP laptop hard drive without losing data

To replace the old hard drive in HP laptops without losing data, especially if you want to replace the system disk and don't want to reinstall Windows OS and the installed programs, please follow the 3 detailed steps below.

Step 1: Clone old hard disk to the new one in HP laptops

To clone the HP laptop hard drive, the disk cloning software we use here is Donemax Disk Clone for Windows, which is the best hard disk cloning software that can help you clone Windows OS and data easily. It can run flawlessly in the current mainstream Windows operating system including Windows 11/8/7/Vista. And it supports all common hard disk brands or models, so you don't have to worry about whether there are different models of hard disks that can be cloned.

Please follow the steps below to clone the old hard drive to the new one in HP laptops:

1. Install or connect the new hard disk to your HP laptops.
2. Launch Donemax Disk Clone and switch to Disk Clone.
3. Select the old disk to clone as the source and the new one as the destination.
   
4. Edit the disk layout on the destination disk. you can select auto fit disk layout, clone as the source disk, or manually edit disk layout from the drop-down menu.
   
5. Click Clone to perform HP disk cloning.
   

Tip: When the target partition or disk in HP laptop is occupied, cloning may fail under the normal system. The software will prompt you to create a WinPE image(.iso file). And then the system will automatically restart and enter the WinPE system to perform the cloning operation.

Read More:
How to Clone Hard Drive in Windows 11

Step 2: Boot HP laptop from the cloned drive

To change to boot HP laptop from the cloned hard drive: restart the computer -> press F10 key to enter the BIOS settings menu -> change the boot preference to cloned hard drives in Boot Options -> and press F10 key to save and exit. Different HP laptop models may have different BIOS entry methods, you can try to press F2 or F6 key.

If your Hp laptop have two hard drive bays, you can format the old hard disk and use it as a data storage disk after changing the boot order. If the Hp laptop have only one hard drive bays, you need to replace the hard drive directly after the clone is complete.

Step 3: Replace the old disk with the new one

If your Hp laptop with only one hard drive bay or you want to remove the old disk from your HP laptops, please refer to the steps below:

1. Disconnect the cloned new hard drive from the external connection in HP laptop.
2. Turn off the power and wait for the computer to cool down before replacing your hp laptop hard drive.
3. Use a screwdriver to disassemble the backplane, carefully lift the old hard drive about 30 degrees, and slowly pull it out.
4. Put the new hard drive into the bay and reconnect it correctly. It is the opposite of how you would take apart an old hard drive
5. Fix the hard drive and then reinstall the backplane and battery.
6. Restart the HP laptop and boot Windows OS with the new hard drive.

After booting, you will find that everything is the same as your original HP laptop environment, with no setting changes and no data loss.

Which Hard Drives Are Suitable for HP Laptops

Most hard drives on the market are universal, but what you need to determine is the type of hard drive interface of your hp laptops, which can be roughly divided into the following four types:
1. SATA 3Gb/s is the sata2 interface.
2. SATA 6Gb/s, then it is a sata3 interface.
3. mSATA interface.
4. m.2 (NGFF) interface.

The difference between these interfaces is enormous. Some interfaces are different in size, and some are different in volume (the difference between mSATA and SATA has different definitions, interfaces, and appearances. SATA is generally connected to a 2.5-inch solid-state drive. MSATA is generally connected to a solid state without a shell, and another interface is that the solid state connected to M.2 (NGFF) is longer and narrower than mSATA.) These are incompatible, and you must confirm the disk interfaces when choosing. Besides, you need to care about the speed of hard disk operation, performance stability, and capacity size.

Read More:
Free SSD Cloning Software from Hard Drive Update and Replacement

Summary

After you are well prepared, you can easily and quickly replace the HP notebook hard drive. If you want to keep all your essential data simultaneously without reinstalling the system, Donemax Disk Clone will be your best choice to move Windows OS to the new drive on your HP laptop.