F120 physical size doesn't fit hp touchsmart tm2t

[mcbirds]

Hello folks,

I've recently purchased a corsair force 120gb to install into my laptop and came into quite a bit of a conundrum.

 

The 2.5' hard drive slot of my hp touchsmart tm2t has a tiny metallic ledge protruding in the upper left corner (drive connector facing up) and hits the metallic shell of the SSD where the regular drive's edge is slimmer. Obviously, removing the metallic casing of the drive would probably make it fit but voiding the warranty is out of the question and taking a dremel to either a brand new 250 dollars drive or the naked insides of my laptop isn't much of an option either.

 

Does anyone have any experience with SSDs not fitting and possible ways to solve that problem?

For instance, I reckon that a small adapter that could extend the slot forward by a quarter of an inch would pretty much solve the problem but I don't have the faintest clue as to where I could source something like that...

Thanks

 

Here's a picture of the problem:

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/6209/p1010015o0.jpg

[Yellowbeard]

Can you post a pic of your original HDD solo and one of it beside the SSD? Also, the full specifications/model number of your original drive would help.

[mcbirds]

Sure. Sorry about the poor focusing; I couldn't take good pictures to save humanity.

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/5862/p10100130.jpg

 

Note that the gap on the original HDD is only relevant at the corner where it meets that little ledge. It's literally two millimeters of metal stopping me from using the drive.

 

edit:

sorry, you wanted the hard drive alone as well:

http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/671/p1010014i.jpg

http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/298/p1010015b.jpg

It's a Hitachi 7k500 hts725050a9a364, 500gb drive that came with the laptop.

[RAM GUY]

It looks as though they are using a nonstandard configuration and that may be the only HDD you can use in that system if that is the case.

[rhesuspieces]

Sorry to hear about that. It takes the steam right out sometimes. I had a minor problem putting an F240 into my Toshiba laptop. In my case, pun intended, the Corsair drive was a little thicker than the Hatachi in there already. Luckily, there were rubber spacers that could be removed or thinned. I did have to be careful because any little tugging around in there meant that the SATA connector would become unplugged. I think I may tape it to the drive just to make is secure. My SATA connector is at the end of a mylar ribbon cable so there is some give there.

 

Two options I see are unscrew the screw in the way and bend the tab up to see if you get enough room there. The other is looking inside the Corsair drive to see if you could use a Dremel on the case to make room. Any warranty goes out the window but maybe it would fit.

 

I don't think anyone makes a connector that is small enough to fit in the space provided.

 

How about just removing the drive from the container entirely. No moving parts. Just make sure that it's secure electrically. I like this idea the best. I would do it.

[mcbirds]

Thanks for your reply, rhesuspieces

One of the first ideas I had was to remove the metal shell and wrap it with a plasticized sleeve and some electrical tape. Looking at some pictures of the 'naked' drive online, it's pretty clear that it easily would work but the only thing in the way of doing that is that I can't do it without voiding the warranty and I'm somewhat nervous of a possible failure with my first SSD.

 

That said, I think you are correct that there exists no adapter that'd help me in this situation and once I build up the courage and rationalize it with some statistics on drive failures, I might just roll the dice and go ahead with sanding down the corner while hoping I won't have to be cursing myself for voiding the warranty. The only alternative I could think of was to use it on a desktop elsewhere but the wouldn't really help with no SSDs fitting my laptop where it would benefit me the most.

[Synbios]

I wouldn't try to adjust the drive, but rather I would just take some small wire/bolt cutters and take a piece of that metal frame out from inside the laptop. I've never seen any problems like this. The backplane of the drive is supposed to be flush with the drive casing so yes indeed it is HP that is using a non-standard config here.

[mcbirds]

Yes, I completely agree that the problem is from hp's design. They even admitted it themselves when I contacted them to explain the problem but they also made a pretty good case that customer service won't be able to do much about it and the best I could do would to preserve the warranty on the 800 dollars laptop rather than the 250 dollars drive.

 

The reason why I'd rather modify the drive is that first, due to the small and confined space where the problematic portion resides, it is much much harder to safely modify the laptop whereas the drive would take five minutes and be relatively safe an operation. The protruding ledge is actually flat and with anything short of a dremel with a sanding bit, I would struggle to only scratch the corner. I would even have a hard time taping down all the openings where metal bits and shavings could potentially fly into, not to mention that the chunk of metal in question appears to keep the thin heatspreader tightly on a chipset and probably wouldn't be the wisest spot to weaken.

 

Second, while the SSD drives should typically be more likely to have any failures within two years, I still consider it less of a liability as I plan on going through daily backups and work through my dropbox account. If I do end up in the worst case scenario, I would take it as an excuse to invest in a bigger one.

 

Anyhow thanks for the responses, folks.

I guess this is just the sort of bad luck I'll be laughing at in a few months.

[Synthohol]

most all OEM laptops and some desktops incorporate some sort of proprietary design so you are forced to buy certain hardware only from them and purposely design them to negate the use of aftermarket parts.

Compaq and gateway were the worse offenders in my personal experience and now that HP and Compaq are the same company, your troubles do not surprise me in the least I'm sorry to say.