laptop hardware changes

[Moliere]

How hard is it to swap a hard drive on a laptop? I build desktops and swap gear all the time, but never on a laptop. Windows is giving a warning that the hard drive is about to fail. Not sure if it's worth the swap or just get a new one. My other concern is if I get a new hard drive how would I transfer the newly upgraded Windows 10 onto the drive? I don't have a disk and the previous Win8 was pre-installed.

[Isgrimnur]

Depends on the laptop. Cabling can be an absolute nightmare, as things are designed for tight tolerances. If I were looking into it, I'd be hitting up YouTube to see if it was full of easily breakable parts/cables before cracking the case.

The hardware tech at one job would up sending a laptop to the mfg because the cable was so flimsy due to the bendable nature of it, that anything other than a perfect install ended up causing broken wires.

[Anonymous Bosch]

How hard is it to swap a hard drive on a laptop? I build desktops and swap gear all the time, but never on a laptop. Windows is giving a warning that the hard drive is about to fail. Not sure if it's worth the swap or just get a new one.

While proprietary cabling and such certainly can make it trickier as Isgrimnur points out above, I doubt you're llikely to have much difficulty if you're comfortable building and swapping out desktop gear. Here's a decent generic guide from PC World for 'How to Replace Your Laptop Hard Drive.'

My other concern is if I get a new hard drive how would I transfer the newly upgraded Windows 10 onto the drive? I don't have a disk and the previous Win8 was pre-installed.

If you've already installed and activated Windows 10 on the laptop, you should be able to simply download Windows 10 and perform a fresh installation. Activation for the free upgrade version of Windows 10 is tied to your hardware configuration so you're not given a product key. But that shouldn't be an issue if you're merely upgrading a hard drive; during installation, just skip the part where it wants you to enter a product key and it should activate automatically upon completion.

[gilraen]

How hard is it to swap a hard drive on a laptop? I build desktops and swap gear all the time, but never on a laptop. Windows is giving a warning that the hard drive is about to fail. .

My work laptop is getting the Windows warning that the hard drive is about to fail. I've been getting that warning for at least a year and a a half now, and it's still working fine

[Daehawk]

Also check iFixit. They sell tools for pc work and such but also have a library of videos and tutorials on how to repair or take apart products.

[Kasey Chang]

There are HD transfer kits you can get at BestBuy. A USB cable to SATA and drivers / software. Run it and it'll clone your entire existing HD to the new HD. Then swap the HD, and you're done. I did this when I did the SSD swap.