Laptop SATA HDD sliding out of place?

jcon891

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Hi, I got a laptop in to repair. it is an HP Pavilion dv3 with Windows Vista Home Premium. The customer informed me that the only other person who had worked on the laptop was HP. She had sent it back to see what was wrong with it. They told her the hard drive was dead. They charged her $250 and sent her a new hard drive with the computer (but had her put it in herself) .... ridiculous price but that's beside the fact.

The first thing I noticed was the startup took a long time for dual core pc with 4gb of ram. Then I noticed that there was a lot of locking up. The lockups felt like something that would normally happen when there's a problem with the RAM or HDD. So I opened it up and re-set the HDD.

I turned it back on and voila, I am seeing absolutely no lockups. I have cycled it a few times and i'm noticing that the startup and shut down seem better as well. So I am thinking it's possible that the HD was budged out of place.

[MY QUESTION] -- Is there any safe material I can use to wedge between the hard drive and the wall of the hard drive compartment to ensure that it doesn't budge when the laptop is moved? I know that slipping could definitely have been the main cause of the first hard drive malfunction and HP might have even charged her $250 to replace a hard drive that was merely out of place...

Hope there's something I can use
 
Anything non-conductive, really. A small strip of foam or rubber, some rolled up electrical or duct tape...
 
Where is the old drive? There should have been a rack or tray that the hard drive mounts in which screws into place when you install the drive.
 
I know, there is a tray but it's just sitting on 2 foam pads and plugged into the sata. It doesn't lock into the hard drive compartment itself and usually, this set up secures the drive tightly but I believe theres something wrong with the plastic around the sata plug on the laptop itself. So when the drive is in securely it's absolutely fine. I will try electrical tape. I believe that as long as there is some pressure on the side of the hard drive opposite the connectors, it will be very secure.
 
Why don't people read o_O it was a customer and HP charged her for the overprices HDD. I am a computer tech and I know where to get low prices, TY though.

The laptop was butchered somehow, most likely by whoever stripped one of the screws holding on the plastic cover for the ram. the plastic is broken so that's most likely why it's slipping. the electrical tape is doing the job right now

--eek, your prices for laptop hard drives are not all that low anyway.--
 
Just to make sure, buying a new cradle off of ebay is not an option correct? If it is, they are pretty cheap.

Otherwise, I'd recommend a foam rubber insert to hold the drive in place . It'd be more durable than electrical tape while still not conducting any electricity.
 
the plastic holding the screws under the laptop is broken. the cradle appears find. a foam rubber insert sounds perfect, I'd just have to figure out where to get one :) the electrical tape worked for now at least and i'll make a housecall and put in something stronger when i find something. Maybe someone on ebay has a supply of foam rubber :p
 
Build up a new mount-point with epoxy.
dremel.gif
 
A lot of weather stripping is made of foam rubber, so maybe you could find something at your local hardware store too.

Personally, I don't like the idea of epoxy on electronics, but that's personal preference.
 
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