Replacement hard drive for Vaio PCG-3F5P

[Ian_1947]

The 320Gb hard drive in my Vaio laptop, model PCG-3F5P, died recently and I'm looking for a replacement, but since the laptop was bought in Australia I can't find the particular model listed in the UK. 

Does anyone know whether I have to get a replacement for that specific model or will a hard drive for any Vaio model fit and work?  In other words, is the fitting standard across the whole range of Vaio models?

[Blencogo · Accepted solution]

Hi Ian and welcome.

You are not quoting a valid model - I think you are using the chassis model which is shared by all models in the series.

I think yours is a 16.4" VGN-FW Series Vaio - look on the screen surround for something like VGN-FW35GB.  The European equivalent would be the VGN-FW21E.

However, it looks like you have a single HDD so any make of slimline 3.5 inch SATA hard drive should fit as long as it is not thicker than 9,5mm.  The original drive will be a 512 bytes per sector format drive which means an upper limit of 500GB.  Check that any drive you buy is not an Advanced Format (AF) HDD formatted with 4098 bytes per sector as any recovery media cannot recognise this type of drive and if you need any support from Sony, they will only support a drive with the original specifications..  Most recent large capacity drives will be AF drives so check carefully.

[Blencogo]

Whoops - I'm sorry.

As Rich912 has spotted, that should read "2.5 inch SATA Hard Drive".

Apologies.