Thinkpad T61 hard drive upgrade

[lather]

I recently bought a T61 with Windows 10 pre-loaded. As the current HDD is only 100GB, I'd like to do as I've done with all of my previous Thinkpads (R32, T41 and T42), plus those of the rest of my family (T21 and T43) and upgrade the HDD to a larger one.

I've got cloning software that I've used for all of the previous upgrades, and I know I can do the physical removal and replacement no problem, but I've got a couple of questions I need to check on before I go ahead and source the drive.

Firstly, is there anything in W10 that blocks you from simply cloning a drive to a larger one and installing that drive in the same computer? I know that XP Home could be a bit awkward when it came to hardware upgrades, but as I always used XP Pro it was never an issue for me.

Secondly, is there anything about the T61 that means that you can only use certain makes or models of HDD? Again, I know from experience that the T43 limited the makes and models it would accept, even if they physically fitted into the machine, so has this feature (or something similar) been carried over to the T61?

Any advice on this would be appreciated, as I'd really like to get it upgraded to about a 250GB drive if I can.

[RealBlackStuff]

Update the BIOS first with Middleton: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Middleton's_BIOS
It will double the SATA speed.
Then, instead of another HD, get an SSD, it will FLY!
No limits on what (brand, size) you can buy.

[lather]

Not sure that my budget can stretch to an SSD at the moment... Until it can, does the lack of limits on brand and size also apply to HDDs?

(I have found bits online about how you can use W10's own backup function to clone a drive onto a new larger one, so I think that part of my question has been answered - unless anyone here knows any different.)

[ac12]

SSD of moderate size are not that much more than a HD.
BestBuy.com shows a 240GB SanDdisk SSD for $40, and a 480GB SSD for $65.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandisk-24 ... Id=5394603
For my use, a 240GB SSD was more than enough space.

I understood that the SSD is handled different than a HD, and this is done on install of Win10. And a clone would not do that.
It has been a long time, so I do not remember any of the details of why and how.

But you NEED the Win10 install key to do a fresh Win10 install. The problem is, some/many of those "preloaded Win10" systems don't give you the key. You need to contact the seller to get the key. I do not know if you can or how to get the key out of an existing system. You may have to contact MS and explain what you are doing, and need a key to do a reinstall.

[wujstefan]

Why is that? Cloning worked perfectly fine to me, not longer than 2 weeks ago.

[ac12]

As I said, I do not remember the details of WHY you should install Win10 rather than clone from a HD to a SSD.
I think there was something in the Win10 install process that treated a SSD different than a HD. But I cannot tell you any more, as I did that research a long time ago.

[ajkula66]

IME, cloning from a HDD to SSD is a bad idea regardless of the OS involved. YMMV.

[olddog]

I cloned my HDD before reading this, but have had no problems - so far!

Others in the same position might find the following useful:

https://www.disk-partition.com/windows- ... -4348.html

IME, cloning from a HDD to SSD is a bad idea regardless of the OS involved. YMMV.