Slashdot Mirror
Advice for a Novice Replacing Laptop Hard Drive?
frugalRepairs asks: "The hard disk in my Sharp PC-MV12W laptop recently died. It gave me warning and I had everything backed up. It was out of warranty and the repair folks want an arm and a leg to fix it. I would like to replace the hard drive myself but I've never done anything like this before. It seems to me that I would just extract the old hard drive, note the physical measurements, purchase new hard drive, and install it. However, I'm expecting Mr. Murphy to visit me as soon as I open the case and would like some advice from Slashdot experts. Do I need special tools? Does the BIOS have special needs? Are all 2.5" laptop drives created equal?"
1. Open computer cover
2. Verify that it's a 2.5" IDE drive
3. Go to shop, buy new 2.5" drive
4. Go back home, remove dead disk from computer
5. Plug new drive when the old one was
6. Close computer cover
7. Install OS
Honestly, there's nothing special to it. But there are two issues that you'll probably find:
a) Laptops are very crowded inside their covers. Write down where everything belongs as you take it apart. Take photos if possible, to make sure that you put it together in the same way later.
b) Laptop manufacturers don't like users messing with the hardware. Your laptop most likely has a cover underneath that you can remove by unscrewing a standard screw, and the hard disk is most likely inside it (that's the case with my Compaq Presario). However, it might happen that you have to use some special hexagonal key to reach the hard disk, as is the case on my wife's Sony laptop.
My site
As with desktop hard drives, yes, there are subtle differences between laptop hard drives (LHD) but basically, yes, all laptop hard drives are the same. While desktop hard drives are 3.5", LHDs are 2.5". The only tricky part is thickness - some older drives are 12mm and newer ones are 9mm. You can't go wrong with a 9mm, so just get that kind.
There are no bios issues to worry about. Plug in the drive and go.
Whether or not you need special toold depends on the manufacturer. I've only ever needed a philips screwdriver for my compaq aero, fujitsu lifebook, and dell inspiron.
Knowledge is valuable. Ignorance is dangerous. Censorship is unacceptable. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10
Have you ever opened up small electronics before? A CD player or the such? The best approach is to do an amazing job keeping track of which screws go where, because they're all likely different. Additionally, every piece you take off will likely have a very fragile ribbon cable with a very fragile connection, so just be careful. generally the ribbon cables pull out once a small catch is slid towards them.
;) then power up, and so long as everything works (including, and double check this one, the fan) you're golden.
As for the actual hard drive, the bios in all recent (since they went to ide) laptops is completely compatible. Unless you've got a strange laptop that did what compaq desktops used to, with bios-on-disk, but sharp's aren't like that afaik.
Last thing... all 2.5" drives are not the same. My portege has a 9mm thick drive, and the new portege's and thinkpad x's take like 7mm or something. the standard i believe is 12mm, so you'll likely need one of the (slightly) more expensive models. Get a new one, as anything used could be just as broken as what you're taking out, and believe me its not worth it to pull that thing apart twice!
If you kept track of everything (screws, cables, etc) and nothing's left over
Good luck, and make sure you aren't over-tired or hungry when you attempt it, it can be frustrating.
So in summary, this sort of BIOS issue won't keep a new HDD from working, but if you can't see all of it, you may need a BIOS update.
Good luck! It really is quite easy (says the experienced computer nerd...)!
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
Usually, the hard part is opening the laptop to get to the drive. There are many screws, but not all need to be unscrewed. Many parts are simply clipped together. I have opened several noteboks, and usually found out only too late that it would have been much easier if I had known how to open it.
First, try to search the web for a service manual which details how to get to the drive on your specific model. If you find clear instructions, that will be of great help.
For the drive thickness issue, as others have said, the recent thinner drives will work to replace older thicker drives, so you shouldn't have a problem.
If the notebook is old, the BIOS may not support the full capacity of your new drive. Not a big deal: you would just loose a few Gigabytes, but the drive will work perfectly with the lower capacity.
To add on to what has already been said, be careful of wires attached from the removable hardware to the case, when opening your notebook. aside from that, try to purchase a similar (although in this case, you might want to choose another manufacturer because the drive you had doesn't seem to be to reliable) hardware.
It doesn't have to be so hard... I had a thinkpad where you could remove the hard drive be removing just one screw, one that could be turned with a quarter actually. And my current compaq has a reasonable way to access the drive too, iirc.
See you, space cowboy...
Or is it Computing 101 for Dummies? Or are you too lazy to Google?
If you have data backups:
If linux, boot knoppix, mkfs.{fschoice}
copy backups to new fs.
If windows, boot dos disk,
fdisk, partition, etc
Copy backups into place.
If it's IDE, SCSI or standard, whats the issue?
-- (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
aaah
good times...
So now Slashdot has turned into a helpdesk ? There goes the neighbourhood... ;-)
But if you want advice that goes beyond cute offtopic stuff like the above, you probably should check out the manufacturer's customer support site.
There are differences between drives, but as with desktop 3.5" hard drives, they're minor. You might not notice most of them. Plus, most of the drives sold these days have broadly similar specifications.
;-) Along with heat comes power consumption, which may a particularly important issue to laptop users since portables may often be running from battery -- on the other hand if you mostly use the computer plugged in on a desk, this might not matter to you. Spinning a metallic disk at X RPMs is a very serious draw on your battery. If you use the computer on your lap or running from battery try to compare manufacturer's power requirements.
Here are some of the differences you might want to keep in mind:
Physical size, as other have noted, is the most critical difference. Your laptop probably requires a 12mm drive or smaller, but make sure before you buy one. Old 2.5" IDE drives could be as big as 18mm! New ones are usually 9.5mm or 9mm.
Speed varies between drives: 4200, 5400, and now 7200 RPM drives are available for laptops. 5400 and 7200 RPM drives usually have better transfer rates and seek times, but may consume more power...but might not in comparisons between all drives. Check the drive specs. Like desktop drives, cache size also varies. Most models have 2MB caches, but some have 8MB, and this can affect both read/write speed and power consumption. The larger cache probably won't affect the cost of the drive very much, but may speed up certain IO operations. I recommend the 8MB cache.
Power Consumption & Heat: Just as with desktop drives, 2.5" laptop drives can generate considerable heat. It's harder, however, to get rid of heat from cramped laptop interiors than from desktops, and laptops may, errmmmm, generate certain heat related issues that would be a problem with a desktop under only the most contrived and embarrassing circumstances...if you know what I mean.
Noise: Hard drives can be the chief source of noise in laptops. Old drives with mechanical bearings will often be distractingly loud. This can be a problem during meetings or when working in a otherwise quiet office. Fortunately many newer drives have fluid bearings and are very, very, quiet. Definitely look for a drive with fluid bearings.
Capacity: 2.5" hard drives come in a variety of capacities. I'm sure you're shocked to hear that! The largest laptop drives I'm aware of are 80GB. You can still find 10 and 20GB drives for sale new, but prices are rarely significantly lower than for 40GB drives. A pretty reasonable price on a 5400 RPM 40GB drive is probably in the vicinity of $80. A drive with twice that capacity will probably be a bit less than twice the cost, but you'll pay a noticeable premium for a 7200 RPM drive.
As for manufacturers, I'm fond of Hitachi (formerly IBM). I've purchased at least a half dozen IBM & Hitachi 40GB drives with fluid bearings, in both 4200 and 5400 RPM versions, and haven't been disappointed yet. They are marvelously quiet, reliable, fast, and efficient. On the other hand, I've been so happy with them that I haven't bothered to check out competition from other manufacturers so my opinion may be out of date. And like I said at the beginning of the post, you're likely not to go too far wrong with any drive as long as it physically fits, since most manufacturers offer devices with broadly similar capabilities.
Good luck. I don't think you'll have much trouble.
Shuttle cases come with the motherboard (and hence the BIOS), smartass ;)
This is basically just a cradle for holding a laptop drive, with a cable and a PCMCIA card [2] to turn the drive into an external drive. The idea is:
It's pretty reasonably priced, as I recall, and it saves finding a large backup device and copying everything twice, and/or reinstalling the OS. Also, you have a large backup disk at the end of it.
This is beginning to sound like a shill, but I'm just a satisfied customer!
-----
[1] There may be other similar products, I don't know.
[2] I think there may be a USB version too.
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
Has /. become the IT Support Centre for the world? Have we been outsourced?
--
As other have pointed out, since you have a 40GB drive in there, pretty much any modern drive you buy will likely be ok as a replacement. The fun part then is actually replacing it. You'll either find it's easy, like most laptops from Acer, Toshiba, Dell. Or as hard as hell like anything from Apple (except the 15 inch TiBook).
Since it seems to be a sub-note, I wouldn't be surprised to find its the second one, but you might be lucky.
Generally, take off any panel on it which is only held on by 1-4 screws and look for something that looks like a laptop hard drive. Look also for little plastic tabs to pull on to remove it if there are covers on the side. Also, philips screws are a good sign for finding the hard drive. Torx bits are engineer's way of saying "here be dragons".
Good luck.
One thing to watch for is if you are putting the Original (Windows) installation back onto the Laptop. Most OEM Restore Disks check your hardware, not just type/brand/model, but EXACT component. They "Tatoo" the HDD so the Restore knows what to do.
...) or to phone tech-support ...
You may find that you are unable to Restore your OS back onto the new drive.
Only solutions to this are to put a new OS on it (Retail Windows, *nix, other
b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
MadDwarf
Here's a pic of the internals: http://www.josesandoval.com/images/D600Fix2.jpg. The harddisk is in the lower left, the drive bay is in the middle right (the big grey cover).
Questions I have: what sort of strip (material?) should I use to conduct heat to the empty drive bay? Can it be really thin, like 1mm? And would any small cooler be enough? Or could I connect the heat conducting strip to the drive bay cover? (it's made of some sort of aluminium, AFAIK). The drive runs up to 55C. I'd prefer not to use a fan.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
... just pay the repair folks. They (should) know what they do.
The other way: get a repair manual, lots of small tools, and a replacement drive that fits mechanically and electrically into the laptop. Fiddle with some of the tools and your laptop. Result: You have a heap of screws, wires, plastic parts, and strange matter you have never seen before, your laptop is now really broken, the new harddrive has not survived, and you have spent more money than the repair folks demanded. Add a large ammount of super glue to the heap,sell it as piece of modern art on ebay, buy a new laptop and make sure it is repaired by experts next time.
Tux2000
Denken hilft.
The "star" bits are really called Torx. And are sold by sizes from T-xx the larger the number, the smaller the bit.
Most laptops range from T-5 to T-8. If you don't already have a set - go to sears and pick up a set. They are handy to have around because the screws are often used on electronics because they have very good resistance to stripping out and can be tourqed down very accurately.
Some will with a square drive, but thats rare.
Try to identify the old drive and look up the power consumption and heating (the manufatuers have it on their web pages even for really olf drives - usually).
... (idle power consumption may be the most relevant)
Verify that the new drive consumes less power and emits less energy, because the other way round your battery life decreases
Use a digital Camera to take pictures as you go along. That way you will have a guide to putting it back together.
Use a muffin pan or cupcake pan to keep track of the parts. It is often hard to tell which screw is which so put them in different compartmants
Take notes.
Use a large work area set the parts down in a way that makes sense
Make sure you have time to do the job from start to finish. If you have to stop part way thought to go to work, you may forget something. Alternatively, someone may clean up your work area.
It may seem a little foolish at first but if you can't put it back together, WHO's the FOOL NOW?
I've just done this myself. Here are the things I did (& would recommend doing)
;)
1. Get a grounding strap. I've done some whizz-bang electronics before, so I have quite a flash one (I got it from either http://rswww.com/ or http://www.farnell.com/ - I forget) but you can get cheap disposable ones. Some may say it's overkill, but better safe than sorry IMO. You're working in close proximity to your processor, RAM - all of which are easily fried. Plus, laptops are often not grounded. And no socks on the carpet.
2. DON'T USE FORCE. Or it will break. With anything. Not even screws. Take your time & be careful. Bits of case can be hard to remove, having lots of catches and things. Ease out the catches with flat-head screwdrivers or the like. Common sense prevails here.
3. Use the correct screwdriver. Preferably with a magnetic tip (not essential, but screws love to fall into hard-to-reach places). It's worth getting a set of jewellers screwdrivers. Don't use an electric one - it's too easy to strip the screw. I say that from bitter experience (yes, it was silly). Believe you me, it's a harrowing experience drilling out a screw from a laptop.
4. Have a container for all the screws. There may be differing types of screws, so have a couple ready. Try and remove the fewest possible when dis-assembling. It's best not to have bits of laptop falling all over the place when you don't want them to.
5. Take care with your connectors. I had a couple of craft (exacto) knives handy to help ease the IDE interface from the hard disk. You have to do it off gently - don't just pull (and don't cut anything).
6. Love your 'flexi's. There will be (probably brown coloured) 'flexi's. They join bits of circuit board together. These aren't designed to be bent much, so don't bend them much.
Other bits: I replaced mine with a Fujitsu MHT2040AT. While quiet and quite quick, my first one only lasted about 6-7 months. I don't know if I was just unlucky or what. I'm about to start testing the replacement =]
Good Luck!
The most foolproof method of keeping track of where screws go is to use masking tape to label them. Put each groups of screws on a piece of tape and fold it over, then put a piece of tape next to where the screws came from, and label both peices of tape with the same number or letter.
While it may be a little bit more work then neccisarry, it is worthwhile, because it prevents you from getting in over your head. I'm sure everyone has had a time when they started taking out screws thinking they could remember where they go, only to find far more screws than they were expecting. This is especially true when you are taking apart a device for the first time, and are likely to take out more screws than you really needed to in hind-sight.
Or the project may end up spanning over several days because you find you need to get another part and end up forgeting where the screws go in that time. I have a laptop which I took apart months ago, and was able to successfully put it together again just the other day, because all the screws were labeled.
This also prevents the screws from getting lost or mixed should they spill out of the bowl or tray you are keeping them in - essential if you share residence with pets, children, college students or careless adults.
and my "ask slashdot" submission about solar-powered computing get turned down? Maybe if I had asked how to hook a bunch of extension cords together...
My older IBM wont recognize anything above 6GB.. it just says no HD found..
No bios update either.. Sort of sux.
Id check with the manufacturer what it supports before i go out and buy a new drive..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've replaced a few drives in various laptops, with difficulties ranging from simple to bang-your-head-against-the-table-WTF-were-they-thi nking difficult.
a) Some laptops have the drive/memory right under the keyboard. Often there are a few little snaps/screws which keep the keyboard in place, and you can pull it up and whammo... 1-2 screws and your drive is liberated
b) Others (such as my current work machine, Acer 212T) have a safety screw, a little push-button, and voila, ejectable hard-drive bay. Drive pops up in a little metal shell, replace in same orientation and push back in, re-screw the safety screw. I don't really like cheapie Acers but they definately are easy for parts-replacement.
c) If you wanted to preload some files, you can get an adaptor to plug the laptop-sized drive into a PC with a standard IDE interface and power (I don't recommend preloading a full windows OS as it will go a bit flakey with hardware changes, Linux seems fine with it though as long as kernel CPU settings are compatible). Adaptors should be around $10 or less
d) Pay close attention to what screws go where. Laptops tend to be rather finicky with different sized screws all over the place.
e) They're not as sensitive as you might think, but make sure the battery/power are out, and beware the LCD and thin plasticy ribbon cables.
f) As with a previous post, pictures are quite often a good idea if you have a digital camera, etc. Print in stages showing where screws go.
Watch out for the interface voltages. I think older laptops and desktops communicate with the hard drive at 5Volts. Newer laptops use 3.3V I think the transition took place back in the days of around 1 GigaByte laptop hard drives. If your computer came with something bigger then you probably won't have to worry. This may also be a concern when using a 3.5inch to 2.5inch adapter to plug a laptop into a desktop. I bought a cheap $10 adapter to get the data off of my old laptop drive and onto my desktop and then onto the new laptop drive. I used the adapter before knowing that the voltages were different. Luckily it worked anyway. However one of the new laptop drives crashed after a few months and the other still makes scary clanking noises.
Also, wear an anti static wrist strap. With the emphasis on low power consumption in laptops, they're probably even a little more sensitive to static than desktops. What's more, static damage to a laptop is likely to be a lot more difficult to diagnose, and expensive to repair than a desktop.
The laptops I've disassembled have had secret screws hidden in places that would have been hard to find without the disassembly manual.
your computer is really friggin' old. When did you purchase it, before the .com boom?
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
Why is this in /. . Get a book i=on hardware (A+ course book, Upgrading and reparing laptops etc.
The one thing that tripped me up was the screws. There are six screws holding the drive inside the carrier, all are held in with something like loctite (not exactly, but close), and all are philips.
Four of these tiny screws came out easily, but on all but one of the machines, exactly two of the screws would not come out, usually the head would get stripped and I ended up using needle-nose or side-cutters to get a grip on the side of the head and break the loctite.
So my recommendation is to have the right screw drivers, and also a good assortment of other small tools in case you need to force something.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
You can keep the original drive around as a backup, or take it apart and play with the neat glass disk platters and tiny powerful magnets.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Assess how much this laptop is worth. You can find several surplus computer stores selling 500 MHz laptops for $375, but they'll only have 6GB disks.
But, look at Fry's or CompUSA or MicroCenter and actually TOUCH, pick up, turn around and turn over those laptops and ask the sales rep where the disk access slot is. If they don't know, shame on them. You can save yourself a lot of headaches by looking at some of the Dell Latitude CP models from between 1997-1999. They are an example of owner-oriented laptops. I used to service them when I was in the IT department of a former employer, and I used them, when I transferred to Customer Support and again in Manufacturing. It was nice, because I was able to use NT 4.0 for regular work, Win98 for Half Life after work, and for SuSE (now SUSE) as a demonstrator.
In Sept 2001, I made a big mistake buying my Sony Vaio PCG-FX-215 as the disk is removed like this (turning it off, after disconnecting the AC, and after removing the battery and pressing the power button to discharge any AC on board, and AFTER grounding myself (well, usually...)):
1. Remove left-side horizontal screw which holds down the speaker/power panel atop of the laptop; slide plate to right and tilt up;
2. Disconnect the audio feed from the panel, setting panel aside, and let rooted end dangle over laptop; alternatively, leave connected and just tilt the speaker assy/lid up;
3. Remove the single vertical keyboard assembly retaining screw;
4. Use both first fingers' or pinkie fingers' nails to manipulate the keyboard data strip/cable and lift the retaining clip (it doesn't come off, but only slides up or locks down);
5. Use right middle finger to gently rock then lift up assy and disconnect data feed;
4. Remove 4 vertical screws holding the HDD cage inside the chassis;
5. Remove the HDD data bus connector... CAREFULLY! (repetition can destroy the film-thin data lines, and replacements may not be available directly to consumers!)
6. Holding assembly in-hand, remove 4 horizontal screws holding the HDD inside the disk cage, ensuring to have firm grip on cage so as to not let the disk fall out. (Alternatively, swap steps 5 & 6 to keep disk from falling, but this increases risk of ruining the flat, film data cable)
7. Swap the disks
8. Reassemble backward from steps 6 back to 1
-----------
I recommend air-blowing the CPU cooling fan regularly, especially if your box is not using power managment and your fan runs full-tilt when the laptop os energized. This fan will collect "ghost turds" (dust balls or dust layers if it is not spinning full-tilt) and eventually you'll have to open up the laptop to clean the blades with a Q-tip just to keep the weight and resistance to a minimum. BE CAREFUL: That CPU Cooling Fan Heat Sink May Be HOTTTTT!!
With this model, or any that Sony' uses this one for, removing the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM ENCLOSURE is a pain, but not as much as with the HDD. In this case, I assume you found a Toshiba using the same manufacturer as the DVD or CD-ROM, but which Toshiba conveniently (for themselves) wraps inside a weight-adding shroud. Fortunately, for me, the shroud and the DVD & CD-ROM have the same connector commonality/parts. This is despite the Toshiba enclosure having proprietary connectors and such. I just removed the burner and the CD-ROM from their enclosures and swapped them. Then, I used a Dremel to burnish down the grey Toshiba trim piece that serves as the door.
BE VERY SURE to not push or mess up an DIP switches, since there tends to not be any description labels. You could very well wipe your BIOS, alter the BIOS/DISK communication, or alter power-related (global reasons?) settings, or you could simply disable features you have and are supposed to be using.
DON'T remove any grounding wires. You could kill your laptop, or cause problems for yourself (electrocution, if plugged to an AC outlet?)
AND, Look at the Linux Hardware lists... There are se
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Just went through this recently myself. HP, not Sharp, so YMMV.
For newer laptops, hard drives are pretty much plug and play. You can get 5400 and 7200RPM drives now. 5400 is more likely to play nice with your battery life. I picked Seagate because they now have a 5 year warranty. Make sure you get the one with the 8MB cache and not the 2MB. The price isn't that different, so why go with the lesser one? Search around. They're about $120 for 40GB.
You'll need to get the small size screwdriver either phillips or torx depending. The internal screws that attach the hard drive to the frame are tiny. The case screws are usually deep set in small holes, and a regular screwdriver is too fat even if it fits the screw. The one thing that may be a problem is that these screws may be really tightened down, so be careful about a) stripping the heads and b) the screwdriver slipping and damaging something (including yourself).
Above all, heed all the posts about keeping track of the screws. These little monsters are harder to find either in the carpet or at the store. The antistatic strap is a good idea, too. Go barefoot if you're on carpet, but non-carpet is better.
As for getting your data off the old hard drive if it's still alive, find yourself a cheapo 2.5" USB enclosure. 2.5" drives use a single connector that handles both IDE and power. The good news is that cables aren't an issue. There are also adapter plugs that let you hook it up to a regular PC. Either one will run about $20 or so. It's worth it if you can get anything off the old drive.
Put your OS or system restore CD in the drive and boot. The notebook will see the bank drive and should boot off the CD. System restore is perversely better because it's got all the drivers, and since it's a blank drive, you're not losing anything.
On a well-designed laptop, it's not so bad.
BUT, the biggest advice one can give is just to simply take it apart. Don't be afraid, just be gentle, and start removing. You'll figure it out.
Once upon a time (last year) I did repair for a teacher in college's Gateway laptop (I hate those damn things), he broke the damn surface mount for the AC connector, first time just broke the terminal pole connecting it to the board, after that he managed to break THE ENTIRE PLASTIC HOUSING. I repaired it several times, eventually I had to buy a cheap AC connector (couldn't find one that would fit) and cut the plastic off of, and used a flat solder tip to melt to the old housing and encase the replacement terminal pole that I'd shaped from some copper with a dremel. Did I ever do anything like that before? Hell no, just tried it and did it. Thats the only way to learn it.
that said, I have a bit of a problem, when I buy something the first thing I do it take it apart and put it back together. When something DOES go wrong then I know my equipment inside and out. Just go for it man!
C Pungent
I've a question for me: I have a whole bunch of data on an old laptop hard-drive and I don't know how to transfer it over to my PC's hard-drive. The laptop is totally inoperable, so I'd have to work with just the laptop's hard-drive itself. Any suggestions?
Logic, macros, and more
Its a ibm 765L, and while not 'new', its still more then enough to run freebsd: a 133mhz, 80mb ram, with 1024x768 resolution.. Docking station.. etc..
Still quite useable as an average productivity machine......
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...such as this one for my T20:
62p9631.pdf
Other laptop makers make them available too.
Don't make it any harder than you have to...
Take two sheets of paper, label one FRONT and the other BACK.
With the notebook upside down, as you take a screw out, place on the BACK piece of paper in the same relative position it came from on the bottom of the notebook. If you have to flip it and pull screws from the top side, use the other sheet of paper.
Once you're ready to re-assemble, reverse.....
Simple, worls like a charm.....
Or by a USB external enclosure - they're very good and give you a nice 10gigs you can carry in a pocket.
If you can't get, or don't want the new drive to be identical to the old, make sure that the new drive you get is within the heat specs of the laptop. Laptop drives are slow for two reasons - fast drives run hotter, and fast drives consume more power.
Depending on how much you care, have a look at the noise specs too.
Here's some pictures of the harddrive being replaced in a Titanium PowerBook.