upgrading my HP G61 304-NR

[UK-RAY]

I am currently upgrading my laptop - a pretty old HP G61 304-NR - increasing the RAM memory from 2gb to 4gb ( which appears to be the max ) and I am also getting an external hard drive for additional storage. I plan on updating to a SSD also, and setting up a separate RAM drive. my question is, as I am getting a 2TB external hard drive is there any point in paying more for a 240gb SSD? would a cheaper 120gb SSD be just as good now? i really plan on using it mainly for copying my CDs and burning spares to play in the car or on my multi disc jukebox ( to keep the originals unscratched )

any help is much appreciated

cheers

Ray

[iomare · Accepted solution]

Hi,

120GB should be fine foe an SSD with Windows and applications. The SSD will be bottlenecked by the Sata interface, however will still be much faster than a mechanical hard drive.

I would go with the cheapest SSD from a known brand you can find on offer.

You are correct, max 4GB of DDR2 RAM,

Hope it helps,

David

[UK-RAY]

Excellent - thanks for the help David

[UK-RAY]

Further question : i now have my SSD but when i switch out the old HD for the SSD it does not recognise any OS and asks for a bootable disc. I presumed the SSD would have either it's own OS or at least a driver to enable setup to be easy. not so much. my alptop being old tells me a set of recovery discs were previously created ( not that i recall ). so how do i get around this problem? i have the product key for Windows 7 but on their website when i enter the product key it simply states that it is a manufacturer pre installed version so it will not download it for me.

anyone have an y ideas ?

[iomare]

Hi,

You need to install the OS on the SSD. You have a couple of options. You can migrate an image from the old drive to the new one using free software such as Macrium Reflect or software provided by manufacturer of SSD.

Otherwise take a look at the answer by Expert @CherylG in this thread:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/I-need-a-Windows-7-installatio...

Hope it helps,

David

[UK-RAY]

thanks David. at the risk of sounding stupid i presume I can download the Macrium software to my laptop at which point it can creat an image of the OS from my original HD but where would the image be stored? when i take the old HD out and put the SSD in the laptop just won't boot up - it asks for a bootable disc. so how do i get the new SSD to find the OS image? would the Macrium software allow me to store the image on a blank DVD-R ? and would that then act as a bootable disc?