How do I replace the hard drive on a Toshiba Satellite p15-s479?
How do I replace the hard drive on a Toshiba Satellite p15-s479?
The hard drive is located under the CD/DVD drive. Before you start taking apart the laptop, remove the battery and unplug the AC power.
1. You have to remove the CD/DVD drive. Turn the laptop over. Remove one screw right above the dive and slide the drive out of the laptop.
2. When the CD/DVD drive is removed, you’ll see a metal plate. The metal plate is secured by 4 screws. Remove them and lift up the plate from the bay. The hard drive is located right under the plate.
3. After you remove the plate, you’ll see the hard drive. The hard drive also secured by 4 screws. Remove the screws, slide the hard dire to disconnect it from the connector on the moterboard and lift it up.
4. You have to transfer the brackets from the old hard drive to a new hard drive. Also, if there is a foil shielding around the old hard drive, you’ll have to transfer it to a new hard drive too.
Here’s a disassembly guide with pictures: Toshiba Satellite P10/P15 laptops. How to remove the hard drive.
November 3rd, 2010 at 3:20 am
Hi, My toshiba satellite laptop is very sick – i would like to know how interchangeable the HDD in my current laptop is with other laptops. ie. If i bought another toshiba or a dell or something with a smaller hard drive, can i replace it with the one in the satellite?
thanks
March 25th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Mel,
It’s easy. You’ll find instructions at http://www.irisvista.com/tech/
1. Remove the cover.
2. Disconnect the hard drive from the cable.
3. Transfer the foil to a new drive.
4. Install the drive into the laptop.
5. Run the recovery disc to install factory software.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
How do replace a hard drive on a toshiba satellite r15 s829 tablet?
January 9th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
The upgrade kit i used inclued a 40gb hard drive with it, I tried that there and same story… it seems to have cloned it, but I get the same disk read error. The two new drives were WD and Hitachi.
January 9th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Argh, i changed it in and get a “disk read error”. I’ve put back the old one, and checked the new drive in the upgrade enclosure in case i damaged it in installing it and it’s fine. Any idea why the disk is not being read? I was pretty certain when I bought it that it is compatible with the laptop…
January 9th, 2009 at 5:42 am
thanks for the quick reply! should I put this stick strip on the new drive when putting it in?
January 8th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Tony,
Yes, there is a sticky strip in there. Try to separate the foil form the drive with a piece of plastic, something soft (maybe a plastic knife?).
January 8th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Hi folks,
I’ve followed the steps here, thanks v much, but I’m having difficulty getting the foil off the old drive. Is the drive stuck in there? There seems to be a black sticky strip between the bottom of the drive and the drive caddy.
Thanks!
December 1st, 2008 at 8:11 pm
ira m trager,
In this model the cooling fan is located under the system board. You’ll have disassemble the laptop and remove the motherboard as it explained here. Only after that you can replace the fan.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:51 pm
i have a Toshiba Satellite A135-S4427. my fan is starting to make noise when cold but than goes away. is it difficult to replace and where do i get a fan.
November 12th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
i have a toshiba satellite a135 im tryint to replace the driver but im not sure where its located i need help finding it
November 12th, 2008 at 8:29 am
i need to replace the hard drive on my p15-s479. i just don’t know what the size capacity limit on this particular laptop is. will a 160GIG drive work? just wanted to see if there was someone out there who has successfully installed a large hard drive on this model. version of bios installed on this laptop is 2.0 — and i am not sure there are any better updates for this 5 year old model.
October 22nd, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Hello…
I have a Toshiba Satelite A40.Model Number PSA40C-09CXV. The hard drive needs to be replaced.I have no problems replacing it but just wondering do I need a specific hard drive…identical to the one already in it?It has a 40gb Travelstar..but I was hoping to get something a little bigger.Any compatible suggestions would be great.
Thanks,Tanya
October 17th, 2008 at 2:35 am
I have a similar situation to Lee (dec 16, 2006 or something) … My laptop would not boot up, and while trying my restore cd it reaches symantec ghost, but instead of saying C:/ it says Q:/ drive, and that it is an invalid destination drive… and i have no choice but to click okay, which resets it.
Anyways, i was Curious as to wether you could provide the proper model for my laptop: (Toshiba satellite a25-S207) and what is the maximum capacity i could upgrade the HDD to… (RAM also…)
And, after installing the proper hard drive (assuming we find the right one) how would i go about installing another copy of Windows XP on it? Since the HDD (hopefully you help me find) will be certified by toshiba, will i be able to put the restore disk in, and have a fresh copy installed?
I got frustrated when it kept saying check cable (error) when i tried to boot the laptop up.. so i took it apart, and found the HDD, and removed it, and voila, found the ram… so i wanted to upgrade that also… so basically i think i know how to physically install it…
(original problem was.. media test failure, check cable)
August 18th, 2008 at 5:37 am
In response to Dennis’ 2535CDS:
As you are looking at the front of the laptop you will note the floppy drive in the lower left corner. The hard drive resides around the left hand side and slightly above the floppy drive.
As you are looking at the left side front corner, there is a small plastic panel with a screw holding it in place from the bottom, after removing that screw, the panel can be gently pried out and then you should see the screw holding the hard drive cage/chassis in place. Unscrew that screw, pull gently & voila!
Hope this helps.
Joe
August 9th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Hiya
I want to pull the HDD from my Satellite 2535CDS, and I can’t find it! (Had the whole thing apart in a vain attempt to replace motherboard). Can’t find a diagram or manual. Not one of those machines with a nice hatch to open to get the HDD out. Looked like it might be attached to the floppy? But couldn’t see how to disassemble that, either. Any help appreciated.
Dennis
May 20th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Hi there. I have a Satellite A135-S4677 currently w/ a 80Gb drive, but because I’m a photographer/designer, I need more storage. I’d like to upgrade to a 250GB hardrive and but I’m the type that needs step-by-step instruction. I see you have instructions for other laptops, but are any of those similar to my laptop? Before I commit to surgery on my laptop, can you help me? I’m upgrading my memory, but that should be a cinch.
Thanks.
Monica
May 18th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Hi
Hoping you can assist with this one, as it has me stumped. I just acquired a Satellite 2545XCDT. It is about 8 years old, but it is maxed out with ram and cpu so would make a nice little small Linux machine. However, I would like to replace the tiny 4.3 gig hard drive. For the life of me, I can not figure out how to find it.
There are no port covers for one on the bottom. I tried to remove all the screws on the bottom, and that did nothing. I have removed the keyboard, and I can see a cdrom drive under a shield as well as the cpu, but I can’t figure out how to remove the shield. I presume that the hard drive is underneath there. If it is, it should be an easy swap for the 20 gig 5400 rpm one that I want to replace it with.
Can you help me with this one?
Thanks:)
TJ
April 27th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Will H,
That’s a good question and to be honest I don’t have the answer. I’ve never been in a situation like that before. It definitely will not work for the primary hard drive (with the OS) but I’m not sure about the secondary one.
I guess you’ll have to use hard drive ghosting software, make an image from the old secondary hard drive and then write this image to the new secondary hard drive.
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:29 am
Hi there my Toshiba laptop has two hard drives I would like to upgrade the one without the OS on it but I do have some other software which I do not want to loose, is it a case of just copying everything from the drive to an external HD, replacing the old HD and then taking everything from the external to the new HD?? Or will there be problems with file locations etc or could it be that easy?? I would be extremly thankful to anyone who can answer me, cheers folks
March 10th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
ligaya manago,
If this is an IDE hard drive then yes, it should be compatible with your laptop. Toshiba uses many different hard drives in their laptops: Toshiba, Hitachi, IBM, Fujitsu, etc…
March 9th, 2008 at 6:07 am
hi,
i have a toshiba satellite P10-831, is fujitsu hard drive compatible with my laptop???
thanks for giving time to answer.
ligaya(joy)
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Can you advise what dvd burners i could replace my matshita uj811 on my Toshiba p-15 s479? Thanks
October 28th, 2007 at 6:45 am
Hello
Can anyone tell me how to remove the pin adapter from a hard drive in a Satellite A110-275? The platic adapter that covers the IDE pins.
I have done this many times with various laptops but I have not been able to find a way with the new typ of adapter that Toshiba use. It is on very tight and made of very very brittle plastic. Any attempt to ease it off seems to start to break the plasic.
Grateful of any suggestions
Thanks
October 12th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Tom Frazier,
Not sure if it’s going to help, but…
Check the BIOS version installed on your laptop and update it to the latest one.
I just checked the BIOS change history for a Satellite P15 notebook and version 1.90 has this fix:
Not sure exactly what it means, but it’s related to the hard drive.
Updated the BIOS, it might help.
October 12th, 2007 at 5:00 am
Here are a couple of posts that I posted to Hardforum.com. Someone replied whith this site for help.
So here goes…
Hi all,
I am trying to upgrade my Toshiba Satellite P15 Laptop hard drive with a Hitachi Travelstar 160GB hard drive.
When I put the new drive in and plug the power cable in, the power indicator light is on but, when I push the power button to turn on the laptop, all the lights turn on just for a second and then turn off again and there’s nothing. No lights, no boot, no beeps, nothing as if the computer is completely turned off and unplugged. I can’t even push the power button again to turn the lights on for a brief second without unplugging and plugging the power cord in again.
I made sure HD is connected properly and reseated it many times… tried the old drive and everything works fine again. Hmm
So I am thinking the hard drive is bad. Okay… so I returned the new drive for a replacement. Identical drive with the same result… nothing!!!!!
Two bad hard drives??? I don’t think so.
Please help…..
Tom
am upgrading my Toshiba Satellite P15 Laptop hard drive with a Hitachi Travelstar 160GB PATA hard drive. The pin-outs are identical to the HD that is in there. There is a aluminum sticker over the old HD so I cant say if it is a IDE or PATA but like I said the pin-outs are the same. I don’t know if there is a difference in the pin-outs of a IDE and PATA drive but a SATA uses a different connector, that I know for sure.
When I put the new drive in and plug the power cable in, the power indicator light is on but, when I push the power button to turn on the laptop, all the lights turn on just for a second and then turn off again and there’s nothing. No lights, no boot, no beeps, nothing as if the computer is completely turned off and unplugged. I can’t even push the power button again to turn the lights on for a brief second without unplugging and plugging the power cord in again.
My intent is to replace the primary HD and this laptop does not support two HD’s as far as I know anyway. No OS was installed.
I should just be able to install the HD and then install my OS with my optical drive like I have so many times on my desktop.
Yes, I removed the battery first
Tom
July 25th, 2007 at 5:16 am
I have a P15-S479 Toshiba that I have to replace the HD. Thanks to your diagram I don’t think i will have a problem doing that at all but my question is when I went to Best buy to purchase an HD they ask me for like the type or model number. Saying it could be a SL or SA and i had no clue. any suggestions on what i should pick up exactly? I want something rather inexpensive because my son is just using it for games and watching the media edition stuff
June 16th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
How do I locate and extract the hard-drive on Toshiba Satellite laptop 2410 ?
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:18 am
hello,
i have a Toshiba Satellite p15-s479 notebook.
i’ve looked online to find out what the maximum hard drive capacity is, but didnt find any solid answer. and from reading this forum, looks like everyone thinks 120GIG is the max.
i found a really good deal on a SATA 160GIG drive 5400rpm but not sure if this will work with my notebook. im not even sure if i need a SATA or OEM drive.
my current hard drive is acting really strange. it overheats causing the notebook to shut itself off.
thank you!
April 3rd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Help. I recently replaced my hd on a p15 but now when I go into to boot with windows it stalls on the “Setup is Starting Windows” thing. From reading around on the windows support site it states that shit could be a problem with the IDE controller or something? I’ve tried 2 different copies of windows but it just won’t get past that same screen. Can anyone help me out please?