Strip down IBM Travelstar for external caddy?

Hardware

pca_petomane - 6 September 2008 - 4:54pm

I'm trying to install the 'IBM Travelstar' drive from my old Dell into an external caddy (Smart-Drive -HD3A-U2/FW) -to retrieve the data AND get a handy extra drive. However, I can get only SO far....

I obviously have to strip the whole drive down to its basics to fit into the caddy, and therein lies the problem. The EASY side with 4 cross-head screws only takes a few seconds, but the reverse (label) side presents me with 6 odd little screw heads that I don't recognize. I assume that I must remove this side of the drive or it won't fit into the caddy, so can someone please tell me what screwdriver or tool I need to sort this out.

Any advice or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

John I am not familiar with

pca_st-clares - 6 September 2008 - 5:26pm

John

I am not familiar with the IBM Travelstar, but when I removed the HD from my old U/S PC I recall was to only remove it from it's carrier that it was fitted with to slide into the drive bay in the old PC

I then had the HD which I then plugged into the circuit board in the caddy using the short flying lead supplied tightened the short screws to fix the HD in the caddy and close the lid.

I then pludded it into a USB port and it was detected immediately.

Laptop drive

Isitme - 7 September 2008 - 10:30am

Are you sure you are not trying to remove an integral part of the drive? The older Travelstar drives are a good bit thicker than the modern ones. It could be your caddy is designed for the newer size. I have just had a look at a hitachi LT drive I have and the top plate is held on by mini torque screws. This may be what you have on yours. If it is don't even try to remove them or your drive will be ruined. Drives are put together in clean labrority conditions and a speck of dust getting into the works will do untold damage.

TomD

As said, do not remove those

pca_Burn-IT - 7 September 2008 - 12:38pm

As said, do not remove those screws - in fact there are a couple under the label.

Post the model number of the drive.

Dave Burnett Microsoft MVP Shell/User (see http//mvp.support.microsoft.com/ )
God doesn't play dice Does that mean I was supposed to be like this??

Strip down IBM Travelstar for external caddy - solved!

pca_petomane - 7 September 2008 - 3:11pm

Sorry, John, I should have said that I was refering to a laptop - and in the laptop -zone nothing is that straightforward....

Thanks for the warnings, Tom and Dave. If I'd had the right tool for the job, it would have proved disastrous!

Your coments gave me pause for thought, and I eventually realised that the problem was the EIDE/IDE connector on the end of the drive. I THEN realised that this was actually an adapter/converter, and once removed it left me with the right connection for the interface on the external caddy. Up and working nicely now, thank you!

If anyone out there is interested, the caddy I bought is a 'Smart-Drive HD3-U2FWB' from 'USBNow.co.uk' and cost just under 14 quid! It's firewire, and is powered by the Y cable provided. THAT itself took a bit of figuring out - the 2 USBs plug into the laptop (the 2nd one being for the power) and the firewire plug into the caddy.

It certainly works ok, and it's nice to have a 20 gig external drive and no worries about all my data winding up in some rogues hands....

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