Carriage for hard drive in laptop. How to install a second hard drive in a laptop. Choosing a HDD for a laptop

After installing an ssd in my laptop instead of a hdd, I began to experience a catastrophic lack of space on the first one. Purchasing a sata-usb adapter made it possible to expand my media library onto an old hdd. A couple of months passed and this option no longer suited me, namely, I was tired of carrying this “appendix” with me, and the speed left much to be desired. After some time, I came across a number of articles about installing a second drive using an ESPADA adapter. This miracle device with a second disk was inserted instead of the original one DVD drive and delighted users. A search in electronics stores led to the understanding that this device is an unaffordable luxury for me. Prices start from 800 rubles here, from $6 in China. Then on the hub I found articles on how to independently remake a DVD drive for installing a second disk, but I was sorry to break the drive for such experiments, and then it started... At work I took a dead hdd, sata cable, molex-sata from an old power supply.

Just my apartment was undergoing renovation and I had a lot of tools to “adjust” some parts for my idea.

Using an angle grinder, the sata connector was upgraded to Slimline SATA.

On the power side, 5 contact pads were left and other areas we did not need were cut down.

By removing unnecessary contact pads, I finally got the connector I needed, exactly like in a DVD drive.

In advance, a pinout diagram for the contacts was found on the Internet.

Armed with a soldering iron and a lot of patience, I soldered the whole thing into a SATA (ODA)->SATA (HDD) adapter.

Bay all regular glue for shoes (well, I don’t have hot-melt adhesive) and wrapped it with electrical tape, I got a completely aesthetic-looking wiring. After waiting for the glue to dry, I began to try to assemble the whole thing. I taped the HDD with double-sided tape, thereby creating a “cushion”.

I connected everything and inserted it tightly inside.

With my fingers crossed, I turn on the laptop and immediately run to the BIOS.

Hooray! WDC has made its decision.

I boot the system and everything is fine.

There are no limits to joy and pride! It turns out how easy it is to connect a second drive to a laptop at a minimum cost.

A typical laptop configuration involves installing two drives: one of which HDD, the other is an optical disc drive. There is only one compartment for installing a hard drive.

Therefore, in order to install a second hard drive, you need to sacrifice a CD-ROM device (usually a DVD burner drive). For this, there are adapter devices that completely replicate the shape of the internal optical drive with a mount for a standard 2.5-inch HDD.

In this article I will tell you in detail how to replace the cd rom in a laptop with a hdd.

How to determine the thickness of the device

I know of two types of optical drives used on laptops, which differ in thickness. "Thick" has a height of 12.7 mm, and "thin" - 9.5 mm. You can determine the thickness of the device you have installed without disassembling the laptop. To do this, first look at the device manager and look at the product model.

I have this Optiarc AD-7580S. Now let’s visit any popular Internet resource that sells similar products or Yandex.market and look at the characteristics of the device.

As you can see, the thickness of the device, according to the description, is 13 mm (taking into account rounding, in reality 12.7 mm).

If in doubt, you can measure it yourself using an ordinary ruler. You can tell the difference between 12.7 and 9.5 drives with the naked eye.

Where to buy an adapter for HDD to ODD bay

It is a plastic box with a small board with connectors and a microcircuit, also included is a USB cord for connection and a decorative strip on the front side. For some reason, the package included a mini-CD with drivers, but Windows 7 saw the device without installing additional software. Moreover, the device is detected from the BIOS, so it can be used as a bootable CD-ROM.

Assembly of the product is simple and requires no comments. We connect the board to the drive and place it in the box.

Be sure to tighten the two screws included in the box to secure the optical drive and board to the case.

We install the decorative strip on the front panel and our drive is ready for operation.

We connect the disk to the laptop (computer) and make sure that everything works.

P.S.

All steps to replace the standard DVD optical drive with an HDD hard drive were carried out with Lenovo laptop Y550.

Today, optical discs have almost completely lost their relevance. External hard drives and USB drives are being replaced hour by hour. In this regard, many people want to replace an outdated item with a more current one. After all, in desktop computer You can install an additional hard drive, but this number will not work with a laptop, so we will use a disk drive.

There are 3 types of hard drives:

We take into account several parameters:

Speed

It depends on several parameters:

• connection interface- Today, almost all laptops are equipped with either SATA 2 (3 Gbit) or SATA 3 (6 Gbit). You can replace one with another, but if you connect 3 to 2, you won’t be able to maintain high speed;
• cache (memory capacity). The range varies from 8 to 128 Megabytes. When selecting, you should pay attention to the larger volume;
• spindle (rotation speed). It determines how quickly the drive will operate. High speed will ensure fast processing of information. But each speed has its advantages. So, 5400 RPM is low, but it does not consume much power and your device is silent. With these parameters, the laptop will live longer. High speed is 7200 RPM, with this choice the laptop will get very hot and the power consumption will be significantly high.

Dimensions

For laptops, solid state drives or HDDs are produced standard view— 2.5 form factor (3.5 is produced for stationary personal computers). They differ only in thickness (from 5 to 17.5 mm). The standard value is 9.5, but ultra-thin ones use 5 mm.

Volume

Of course, volume is not an unimportant factor in disc selection. For a certain case, a certain volume is suitable:

Each manufacturer can find its own ideal disc, so you should not pay attention to a specific company. It is very important to understand how the drive will be used: just for work, for high-quality games or for data storage. There are quite a lot of types of hard drives, some may please for a long time services, and some in large volume.

In online stores you can familiarize yourself with all the characteristics and understand what kind of work it is suitable for. Also on certain resources there is a description of the purposes for which it is best used.

It is very important to check on the motherboard which interface you need. If you doubt your abilities, it is recommended to consult a specialist.

Reference! When you use 2 disks, PC performance increases significantly. Since HDD is responsible for storing a sufficient amount of information, and SSD is responsible for high-speed operation.

Preparing for installation

The following items are required for this operation:

Important! If your device is under warranty, then after removing the drive you can forget about warranties. Therefore, before deciding to take such a step, you should think it over carefully.

Advice: if you purchase an SSD, it is better to put it in place hard drive, and install the HDD itself instead of the drive. This is explained different speeds ports. It is also necessary to choose the right adapter. If your laptop model is outdated, then most likely you will need an adapter from IDE to SATA during installation (in fact, they differ only in thickness, but there will be fewer problems with the original size).

Find out useful information from our article -

Let's start installation

Keep yourself safe. To do this, you need to turn off the power to the device, disconnect the battery, and then remove the voltage from your hands, for example, touch the battery. Because you can damage the motherboard.

Changing HDD to SSD

If you are not going to replace the HDD, then simply skip this step and go straight to the next one.

We remove the hard drive, following exactly the instructions:

1. Turn the device over and remove the cover by unscrewing all the screws. Then we slightly pry it with a thin object and pull it out.

   

2. Let's start removing the drive: again unscrew all the bolts that secure our device.

   

3. Now carefully move the disk to the left side and pull it out of the case.

   

4. We take this disk out of the mount and set it aside; we will install it instead of the disk drive.

   

5. We install a new SSD solid state drive into this mount.

   

6. The old HDD needs to be installed in an adapter purchased in advance. There should be instructions there so you can install it correctly.

   

We put the disk in place of the optical drive

The installation is complete, all that remains is to set the parameters in the operating system.

BIOS setup

You must enable recognition of the second drive.

Why do you need to install a hard drive instead of a disk drive in a laptop? Increasingly, a solid-state drive is being used as the main storage device. Installing an SSD in a laptop makes the system boot and run faster. However, such devices, as a rule, have modest volumes - storing hundreds of gigabytes of films, games and other important information there's nowhere left.

With a desktop computer everything is simple - you can install at least a few additional drives. Not on a laptop free space. However, it is entirely possible to remove the drive, which is becoming increasingly useless, and install an SSD or HDD () in the laptop instead of a DVD drive. It is not possible to connect the hard drive directly - in laptops, disk drives and storage devices use different connectors. Adapters from DVD to HDD-SATA come to the rescue (You can also find adapters to HDD-IDE, but they are only suitable for old laptops).

Now let's figure out how to install a second hard drive in a laptop using an adapter?

It makes no difference what type of disk is installed in the laptop's optical drive bay - both HDD instead of DVD and SSD will connect the same way. It should be borne in mind that computer manufacturers do not provide for such a modification - there are no official adapters, only Chinese models(for example, Optibey). However, due to very simple device There is no need to worry about the quality of the adapter. But all responsibility for possible problems The user assumes this - he will lose the warranty on the laptop.

Before connecting an additional SSD to a laptop or installing an HDD in the DVD drive bay of a laptop, you need to ensure safety: disconnect the battery, and also ground yourself - touch, for example, the battery to remove static voltage from your hands, which can destroy the components of the computer's motherboard.

Adapter selection

Many manufacturers produce HDD sleds for laptops. There is no significant difference between them - you just need to choose a suitable HDD adapter. A laptop can have one of two types of drives installed:

• 12.7 mm high - in older models;
• 9.5 mm - in modern ultra-thin computers.

It's okay if the thin adapter is used for a laptop with a high bay - installation will go without problems. But it is better to choose a suitable adapter so that replacing the CD drive with an SSD in a laptop does not cause difficulties. In addition, it is worth buying sleds with special brackets with which they cling to outer part computer case, it will be easier to remove the device if necessary.

Disabling the drive and HDD

Creating a laptop with two hard drives is possible in any case, the only differences will be in how the computer case is disassembled. Models different manufacturers may have their own characteristics, but general order action is as follows:

1. The battery is disconnected. If it is non-removable, the battery connector is disconnected from the motherboard.
2. On the bottom surface of the case, the screws holding the drive are unscrewed.
3. The DVD drive is removed.
4. The cover covering the main parts of the laptop is removed. If there is a separate compartment for the drive, as on Sony computers, there is no need to completely disassemble the case.
5. The HDD is removed from the device.

If you are installing a second hard drive in a laptop without replacing the old HDD, you do not need to disconnect it.

Unlike a desktop computer, wires and plugs do not need to be disconnected by hand. They are firmly fixed and will turn off themselves when the devices are removed, so no problems should arise.

Connecting the hard drive to the adapter

1. Installed in place of the old HDD solid state drive, and the removed hard drive is connected to the adapter;
2. Both bays accommodate SSD drives;
3. Using a slide, the drive is replaced with an SSD or any other hard drive, the old drive remains in its place.

In any case, you need to install operating system to a faster drive - either an SSD instead of a DVD, or a disk installed in the main location. This is due to the fact that the SATA cable intended for the DVD drive is 4 times slower than the cable connecting the drive to motherboard. Therefore, with an HDD installed instead of a drive, the system will boot much longer and, in general, the laptop will work slower. The performance of the SSD somewhat compensates for this difference.

Replacing a DVD with a hard drive is as follows:

1. The disk is detached from the original slide, to which it is screwed with 4 screws;
2. The hard drive is inserted into the Optibay adapter and connected to the connectors. On the opposite side, insert a plastic spacer that comes with the adapter;
3. Screws are screwed into the underside of the slide to hold the drive in place;
4. The fasteners are removed from the original drive and screwed to the adapter;
5. On outside a plug is placed on the adapter;
6. The device is inserted into the laptop drive bay;
7. After this, all that remains is to insert the SSD into the slide from the old hard drive, tighten their screws and install the device in its place. Next, the computer case is assembled in reverse order.

Problems with the laptop detecting the second drive

In some cases, the BIOS does not recognize the second hard drive. It's not a problem. This is due to the features of the BIOS itself. The system will boot as normal. If you have installed an SSD instead of a disk drive and want to install the system on it, the program will normally detect the disk.

If the existing OS does not see the second disk, the reason may be that it is not formatted. If you go to the Disk Management system utility, the new hard drive will be detected. You need to format it in file system NTFS and it will appear in Explorer.

Thus, even an inexperienced user can replace a DVD drive with an SSD, since installing a second hard drive on a laptop is very simple. The main thing is to choose the right adapter and not lose the screws when disassembling and reassembling the computer. Below, you can watch a video on installing a hard drive instead of a DVD drive in a laptop and MacBook.

Due to the constant saving of newly captured photos, music and videos, there was not enough space on the 250 GB hard drive, also called a hard drive, installed in my Samsung-R719 laptop. The question arose of choosing a new hard drive with a larger capacity to replace it.

Another question about choosing a new hard drive may arise if it fails due to aging, magnetic coating applied to the disks, or failure electronic board. Service centers They do not repair hard drives.

Hard drive HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or its modern analogue, an SSD (Solid State Drives) in a computer or laptop is designed for recording, storing and reading information. Without a device for storing information, any computer product will not be able to fully operate.

Choosing a HDD for a laptop

For the right choice hard drive for a laptop, first of all you need to decide on its basic technical characteristics, such as:

• Hard disk capacity;
• Method of storing information (HDD or SSD);
• The type of connector (interface) with which the hard drive is connected to the laptop;
• Form factor ( geometric dimensions).

By memory capacity

Currently, only hard drives with a capacity of 500 GB or more are commercially available for storing information data. This amount of hard drive in your computer will be enough to install all the necessary software, store photos, music and your own videos. If you need to contain an archive of films, you will need a hard drive with a capacity of 1 TB or more. When choosing a hard drive, keep in mind that not all motherboards support hard drives larger than 2 TB.

Do not be surprised if a hard drive installed in a computer, for example, with a capacity of 1 TB, when tested, has a capacity of 0.93 TB. The fact is that the computer processes information in the binary system, in which 1 GB = 1024 MB, and manufacturers indicate the volume of the hard drive in the decimal system (which is not true), considering that 1 TB = 1000 GB. A kind of marketing technique that misleads consumers. In addition, part of the hard drive memory is used by the computer system to store service information.

By method of storing information

Recently, it has appeared on the market and is becoming popular new type hard drive, in which information is stored not on magnetic disks, but using microcircuits that are widely used in flash drives connected to USB port. Such drives are called solid-state drives and are briefly designated SSD (Solid State Drives). Due to the absence of mechanical components, SSD solid-state drives have high operating speed and high reliability. But their cost is more than twice the cost of traditional HDDs. So the choice depends entirely on the budget allocated for replacing the hard drive.

There is a third, combined type of hard drive for laptops. On the board of an ordinary hard drive, SSD memory chips are additionally installed, which store information frequently requested by the computer system. This allows you to significantly increase the speed of the disk as a whole with a slight increase in its cost.

When buying a hard drive for a laptop on a limited budget, I recommend paying attention to the combined type of hard drive.

By laptop interface type

There are two ways to find out the type of interface installed in a laptop HDD – informational and mechanical. When using the information method, you need to go to the control panel of the laptop, then to the List of equipment and find out the model of the installed hard drive. Easy to find online by model number specifications, from which you can find out all the parameters of the hard drive.

The mechanical method is simpler, since it does not require searching and understanding the technical characteristics of the hard drive; it is enough to have only a Phillips-head screwdriver on hand. First you need to close all programs, turn off the laptop and fold it. Next, turn the laptop over and place it so as not to scratch the lid on a soft surface. Usually, on all removable laptop covers there is an inscription about what is hidden under them.

Attention, before removing a hard drive, SSD, DVD, memory sticks or any other device, to avoid damage to the laptop, you must turn it off, unplug the power adapter and remove the battery.

Typically, the battery in the laptop case is fixed using two movable latches, which are released by moving them in the direction of the arrow on the laptop lid with sliders connected to them. Both sliders must be simultaneously moved along the arrows on the cover and the battery must be moved to the side, as shown in the photo, and removed.

On the cover of the compartment in which the hard drive is installed, there is the inscription HDD, and under it there is an arrow in the form of a triangle, indicating in which direction you need to slide the cover to remove it after unscrewing the screws located on it.

To separate the connector on the hard drive, there is a tongue made of thick plastic. You need to grab it and move the disk, as shown in the photo, away from the connector.

After removing the hard drive from the laptop, it became obvious that a SATA type serial interface was used to connect the hard drive Serial-ATA. The photo shows this type of connector, with which today the vast majority of laptops, regardless of the manufacturer, connect the hard drive.

And this is what the Serial-ATA connector looks like on a hard or SSD drive. Previously, laptops used an IDE connector to connect hard drives.

Connector IDE It is a set of two rows of pins protruding from the base, as in the photo, so it is easy to distinguish it from the Serial-ATA connector.

Speed ​​characteristics of the SATA Revision specification interface

To connect hard drives, computers use Serial-ATA connectors of one of three specifications.

SATA connectors of all specifications are interchangeable. For example, an SSD with a SATA 3.0 connector can be installed in a laptop that has a SATA 1.0 connector. In this case, the maximum information transfer speed will be limited by the data transfer capability of the SATA 1.0 connector.

The specification of a connector determines only its capabilities, and real speed write-read is determined by the technical characteristics of the hard drive installed in the laptop. For example, a modern, one of the best Seagate 3 TB hard drives has maximum speed reading and writing large amounts of information is only 150 MB/s, and small files are only 1 MB/s. Thus, any hard drive will provide maximum data transfer speed, regardless of the computer’s SATA interface specification.

It’s another matter if you install it on your computer solid state SSD. In some models, the read-write speed is up to 550 MB/second. To implement such a speed, you will only need an interface of the SATA Revision 3.0 specification.

Determining the hard drive form factor

The form factor determines the standard geometric dimensions of a hard drive. In laptops you can find hard drives of the 2.5” form factor (69.9 mm wide) with a case thickness of 7, 9.5 or 15 mm. As a rule, manufacturers install 2.5” form factor hard drives with a thickness of 9.5 mm in laptops.

The form factor of the hard drive can be found out from the technical specifications of the model or you can measure the thickness of the drive with any flat ruler or caliper.

Additional technical specifications
SSD drives

To correctly select a new hard drive, it is enough to take into account its technical characteristics listed above. When choosing a replacement solid-state SSD drive, you must additionally pay attention to the type of memory chips on which the solid-state drive is made, since its service life depends on this.

Types of SSD memory chips

In SSD drives, manufacturers install memory chips of one of three types:

• TLC is the cheapest type of memory with a rewriting resource of at least 1000 cycles;
• MLC optimal view memory for a home computer with a rewriting resource of at least 3,000 cycles;
• 3D NAND is the most expensive and fast memory with a rewriting resource of more than 10,000 cycles.

At first glance, it seems that 3000 rewriting cycles to the disk is not enough, but if you do the calculation, then for a 240 GB SSD disk this memory resource will be enough for decades of intensive use.

For example, my computer has a 240 GB SSD drive. I work on a laptop every day, and additionally, it records 24/7 from three high-definition street surveillance cameras.

Let's calculate the actual rewriting resource of an SSD disk: - 240 GB × 3000 cycles = 720,000 GB = 720 TB. No more than 30 GB of video and other information is recorded per day, less than 10.8 TB per year. Let's divide the disk resource by the annual recording volume: 720/10.8= 66 years old.

Calculations have shown that a solid-state SSD disk assembled from microcircuits of any type of memory in a home computer will become morally obsolete before it exhausts its resource.

How to transfer system and files
in a laptop from the old hard drive to the new one

Having decided on the main technical parameters hard drive, which guarantee the possibility of installing it in a laptop, you can begin to select and purchase it.

Not installed on new hard drives Windows system and after connecting it to the laptop you will need to install Windows everything software necessary for work. This is a rather labor-intensive process, as it requires care, patience and a lot of time.

The task can be simplified using special programs for cloning hard drives, for example, Paragon Drive Copy. The program supports the Russian language and any laptop user can understand it.

In order to use Paragon Drive Copy, you need to install it on your old hard drive, connect new disk to the laptop, run the cloning program and wait until all the information has been copied. Then install the new disk in the laptop and you can immediately work on it, as if the hard disk had never changed.

How to install a second hard drive in a laptop

To transfer the system and files (cloning) from an old disk, you need to connect two hard drives to the laptop at the same time, which is not provided for by its design. There are two ways to solve this problem:

• Use a special adapter container in the form of an external box;
• Install an adapter container instead of a DVD drive, which will allow you to add a second hard drive to your laptop.

Both options are equivalent and it all depends on your future plans for using the old hard drive. If you plan to use the removed hard drive as a USB flash drive for storing and transferring large amounts of information, then you should purchase an external adapter container. And if a hard drive is required to expand the total storage capacity on a laptop, then you will need to install an adapter container instead of a standard DVD drive.

I had to use both options. Several years ago, when it was necessary to increase the capacity of the hard drive, and a DVD drive was still in demand, I had to buy an external USB adapter container in the form of a remote box. And the second time, when I wanted to replace the mechanical hard drive with an SSD drive in order to increase the performance of the laptop and increase the storage capacity of information. The DVD drive was no longer needed and instead an adapter container for a second hard drive was installed in the laptop.

Using a USB adapter container

Available on the market a large assortment adapter containers in the form of an external box, which are designed to connect a hard drive to a laptop via its external USB interface.

When choosing, the main thing is that the form factor and internal interface of the adapter match the form factor and interface of the hard drive. There are also adapters with which the hard drive is connected directly to the laptop connector. They cost less, but are inconvenient to use because, if accidentally touched, such an adapter can easily be broken.

The hard drive adapter container is a plastic or metal box with an external mini-USB connector and an operation indicator LED. The adapter container is connected to the computer using a standard flexible cord with connectors at the ends of mini-USB and USB.

Since 2.5-inch hard drives consume little current, the power provided by the laptop’s USB bus is quite sufficient and no additional power source is required.

To install a hard drive into the adapter container, you need to remove the cover from it, place the hard drive in it and slide it onto the interface connector. After this, close the lid and use standard USB cord to connect the adapter container to the computer. Now the additional hard drive will work as usual for everyone USB flash drive. Thanks to the use of an adapter container, it will be possible to quickly connect a hard drive to any laptop or desktop computer.

Instead of a DVD drive

To date DVDs have lost their relevance, and optical DVD drives installed in laptops are only collecting dust. For expansion technical capabilities The laptop industry has mastered the production of special adapters that allow you to install a second hard drive in a laptop instead of a useless DVD drive.

The form factor and interface connector are the same for all DVD drives installed in laptops, and they come in thicknesses of 9.5 mm and 12.7 mm. Therefore, before purchasing an adapter, you should find out the thickness of the one installed in your laptop dvd drive.

There are two ways to determine the size of a DVD drive. Go to the “Device Manager” of your computer and find its technical specifications using the drive model on the Internet. But it is more advisable to remove the drive from the laptop and measure its thickness, since at the same time you can study how the drive works and figure out how it is removed.

To remove the DVD drive from the laptop case, you need to unscrew just one screw using a Phillips screwdriver, which is located on the side of the bottom cover of the laptop in the area where the drive is located. This screw usually has ODD next to it and an arrow pointing to the head of the screw. After this, the drive can be easily removed.

Since the thickness of adapters for hard drives differs significantly, it is easy to determine it by eye, but to avoid mistakes, it is better to measure it with any ruler or caliper. Measuring the size of the DVD drive installed in my Samsung-R719 laptop using a caliper showed that its thickness is 12.7 mm.

Where can I buy an adapter to replace a DVD drive?

After determining the form factor of the DVD drive installed in the laptop compartment, you can start purchasing an adapter. In computer stores and digital technology available big choice Chinese hard drive adapters for installation instead of a DVD drive costing around $15.

Exactly such adapters, made in China, can be purchased in the Aliexpress online store for $4, although you will have to wait a month or two for delivery.

My choice fell on an adapter made of aluminum alloy, since the hard drive heats up during operation, and metal dissipates heat better. The screw method was chosen for fixing the hard drive in the adapter as it is more reliable. 40 days after payment for the order, the adapter was received by mail. Upon opening the soft packaging and careful inspection, no defects were found. There was also a small Phillips screwdriver in the package.

Replacing a DVD drive with an adapter with a hard drive

Before installing the hard drive into the adapter, you must complete preparatory work, which consist of transferring a corner with a threaded hole and a front panel from a DVD drive to a purchased adapter.

A corner with a threaded axle for fixing the DVD drive in the laptop case is located next to its interface connector and secured with two screws. The adapter did not have a corner, but there were two threaded holes in the required location.

Therefore, I had to remove the corner from the DVD drive and, observing the orientation, secure it to the adapter using the unscrewed screws.

Decorative plastic panel installed on the purchased adapter (bottom in the photo) differed in shape and size from the panel installed on the laptop DVD drive. Therefore, to prevent large cracks from appearing and the appearance laptop, I had to remove the panel from the DVD drive case and install it on the hard drive adapter case.

The photo shows a laptop with an adapter installed with the front panel installed by the manufacturer. As you can see, the appearance of the laptop is not pleasing to the eye.

Changing the panel is not a difficult task if you know where the latches are and how to release them. It is better to remove the panel from the adapter first, since it will no longer be needed and if the latches accidentally break, this will not lead to undesirable consequences.

In a DVD drive removed from a laptop, the pull-out tray for installing disks, on which the front panel is attached, is recessed, and it is impossible to reach the latches in this position. But to extend it, there is a small hole on the panel, into which it is enough to push a metal rod, such as a needle or a straightened paper clip, using a couple of centimeters of pressure.

The decorative front panel on the DVD drive pull-out tray is secured with two latches. One latch, shown in the photo, is located on the edge of the right side of the panel. To release the latch, just press the blade of a screwdriver on it in the recess provided for this.

The second latch is located on the opposite side of the panel and is slightly removed from its end. It is released from entanglement in the same way.

The front panel is removed from the adapter in the same way. After removing it, you need to install the removed front panel from the DVD drive onto the adapter and you can install the hard drive.

After installing the hard drive, you need to secure it in the adapter by screwing in four screws that are already partially screwed into the adapter housing. The screws must be screwed in such a way that they do not protrude, otherwise it will be impossible to insert the adapter into the laptop compartment.

In this hard drive adapter model, to the left of SATA there is a switch for adapting hard drives from different manufacturers:

• A: for HP/Cony;
• B: for Dell/IBM;
• C: for Other Brand.

A Seagate hard drive was installed, which was not on the list, so at random the switch slider was set to position B.

The hard drive adapter is ready to replace the DVD drive, and now it's time to insert it into the laptop bay.

The adapter easily fit completely into the laptop compartment, and the front panel merged with the body, just like the front panel of the previously installed DVD drive. All that remains is to secure the adapter by tightening one screw on the bottom of the laptop and you can check the operation of the hard drive.

After installing the battery and turning on the computer, the Windows system recognized the adapter, installed the driver, and the partitions of the additional hard drive became available for work. When writing and reading from the second hard drive, the LED on the adapter panel blinked of blue color, and in sleep mode the light was constantly on.

By installing a hard drive adapter into a laptop instead of a useless DVD drive, it became possible to store up to 1.1 TB of information. In addition, thanks to the placement of system Windows files and storing frequently used information on an SSD drive, acoustic noise, which previously emitted from the hard drive, disappeared, and the laptop began to work almost silently.