Hi Ian,

I've pulled apart a few in my time.  In most of them you can get at the hard
drive fairly easy without disassembling them.  The only reason I disassemble
one is to get at something on the inside like a shorted wire, a pulled
connection, etc.  I would look closely on the outside to find the bay where
the hard drive is stored.  On my Dell, there is a door on the side to pull
the caddy out, but you have to remove a single screw from the bottom of the
unit to open the door.

As far as the compatibility is concerned, most laptop hard drives have a
standard pin-out.  If the laptop is not compatible with the actual pin-out,
it usually has an adapter that is compatible, and it plugs into it's own
little slot or socket when inserted into the unit.  I would be more worried
about dimensions.  I have a 1.3GHz drive that I wanted to put in my Toshiba
laptop to play around with, but the drive was about 1/8 inch too high to fit
in the bay.  Most places that sell the hard drives will list the units that
are guaranteed to be compatible with the particular drive.

Kyle Elmblade
Distinct Computer Solutions
[log in to unmask]
Computers are a more fun way to do the same work you'd have to do without
them.

From: "Ian" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 1:47 AM
Subject: [PCBUILD] dying Dell Inspiron 3500 laptop


> This ageing laptop is reporting no C drive, so I'm going to pull it to
bits
> and see if I can fix it.  Anyone able to offer any helpful tips, (like -
> I've never opened up a laptop before) or know where I might find a service
> manual?
>
> Also - I'm assuming that a laptop is like any other pc, and that the HDD
can
> be replaced with a generic substitute.  Anyone know otherwise?
>
> Ian Porter

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