At 1/13/00 01:03 AM , Jose E. Dominguez wrote:

>Are laptop drives the same? I mean, can a drive from a Toshiba be
>installed in an AST laptop as long as the interface and drive physical
>size is the same? Do you need to buy a Toshiba drive for a Toshiba or
>can a Seagate or other brand work?

Jose,

Various manufacturers make drives for laptops but they are specific to the
brand and model.  In other words a particular hard drive will only fit my
IBM 760 ThinkPad and maybe a couple more IBM ThinkPad models.

If you browse a internet seller's catalog (CMP Express for example) you
will see several companies make drives for a specific model laptop.  The
original manufacturer's drive are usually more expensive, but are
guaranteed to fit and work.  Other companies like Procomm and Kingston make
replacement drives fro laptops.

In short, laptop drives are not universal like desktop IDE, or SCSI drives,
but other manufacturers do make for a specific model.

Doug

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