Is Hard Drive upgradable on IBM R51 ?

You can upgrade the harddrive. I just purchased s 7200 drive off Newegg. I'm going to be installing it soon. What you need is the Ultrabay harddrive carriage and some partition transfer utility. That is if you don't want to do a new install. Don't get the 5400, the 7200 will use as much power as the 5400. The Hitachi 7k100 are good drives. I recommend only using one drive in it, not two as that will eat more battery life. thinkpads.com has some good info on their forums too.

-Chris

you should have 2rd hard drive adapter intead of your CD driver.

if u wan to add to ur current hdd, u need to buy an ultrabay drive hdd adapter.

changing the current hdd is a simple affair, but u'll need to get ready the recovery CDs to reinstall Windows XP on the new hdd..

anyway, if u want to get 5.4k rpm hdd, aim for the 100gb ones, they are the cheapest per gb..

Sure the ultrabay harddrive adapter is nice is you plan on using 2 harddrives often, but it is definitely not needed. You can get a USB adapter for Much cheaper on ebay (like this one for $10 shipped).

The physical act of removing the hard drive and putting a new one in is very simple. On my computer all you have to do is unscrew one screw on the bottom, and then a couple more screws to remove the drive from the caddy. You just put the new drive in the caddy and put it back in your computer, and you're done with the hardware.

Putting windows back on it is more of a pain. You can do a clean reinstall of windows and your programs, which sucks, but you end up with no extra crap on your computer, which will definitely help performance. Or, you can use a program like norton ghost or acronis true image (the trial is free for 15 days, and I think you get full functionality) to make a complete copy of your current drive on your new drive. You should do this with your old drive in your computer, and your new drive in the USB adapter. Then, pop the new drive in your computer, and you're done.

For the cheapest harddrives, I'm not sure, but places like newegg are good to check. Here are their harddrives...the 100gb western digital one is actually cheaper than the 80gb seagate, though I don't know if there's a difference in quality.

i guess Seagate drives are more expensive is because they offer 5 yrs warranty...

Just buy an USB enclosure and download Maxtor's MaxBlast. It will make an identical copy of your hard drive on the new one and you will be up and running in no time. MaxBlast is free.

hmm.. but i dun haf a Maxtor hdd to make use of the software...

You bet you can get a larger hard drive. (at least 100gb)
If you want one for minimum bucks, search and PM a user called BrentPresley.

He seems to have an endless supply of IBM hardware, prices are good, plus he is safe to do business with.

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=152810

i think you need this one.