This is a step by step on how to replace the internal hard drive of a Toshiba Satellite A100-376 with a stock off the shelf SATA SSD drive. In my case I chose a Kingston 240GB ssdNOW V300 that is in the sub 100€ price point. But if you shop around you might be able to get the SSD even cheaper.

Here we go: 5 steps to install an SSD.

1 – Prepare the windows partition by cleanig it and defraging the Hard drive using your preferred tools.

2 – Clone it using the Clonezilla Live CD (great little tool)

The Toshiba Satellite A100 is an old machine, but still very capable, and most important it is VERY EASY TO UPGRADE. You just remove the screws, pull the tab and the hard drive is disconnected. Perfect.

3 – Remove the Hard Drive

4 – Install the SSD

5 – Reboot.

If you only use Windows, then check the Disk Management to format the extended space for extra space.

If using other OSes (like… Linux maybe) then use the gparted live cd to resize partitions so you can use the entire disk.

In my case I’m using Linux Mint along side a windows partition (YES, WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED?). After resizing I could not boot because grub could not find the partitions (DAMN MACHINES). THIS MEANS I had to boot from the original Mint Live CD and reinstall grub following the instructions on the Mint community website!

sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sdX

In my case X was “a” and Y was “6”, replace your according to your drive… be warned. Use fdisk -l to find out.

and after rebooting into my Mint I just entered into the terminal

sudo update-grub

to be sure that Mint it was! With SSD prices coming down, there’s no reason to still be using the old hard drives.