Replacing a Sony Vaio Laptop Hard Drive - Illustrated how to replace an notebook internal hard drive

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	The first step when working on any notebook or laptop is to pull the battery. Sometimes the power button appears to be protected, like under the lid, but it may fire up due to to a mechanical jolt or a short cause by a screwdriver, so I always take it out. This Sony VIO unit slides out of the left side after popping off a small door. Oddly enough, some laptops use a similar method to replace hard drives.
When it comes to replacing hard drives in laptops, there are easy types and hard types. But even if yours is the easy type, don't waste money replacing it unless you're confident that it's the problem. The easy type of notebook hard drive to replace is reached by removing a lid on the bottom of the notebook, or slid out from the body, almost like I mentioned above. This Sony VAIO laptop, and many others, contains the hard drive within the body. Fortunately, this design doesn't make up rip the whole top off the body, just the blue sound cover (I call it that because it holds the speakers), which is secured in at one point. It slides off to the right after the screw is removed.

	The ribbon cable that powers the speakers is removed above, simply by pushing back the edges of the white connector, then pulling out the ribbon. There's a similar connector on the back of the keyboard, which we lift out to the left, giving us access to the inside of the Sony notebook computer body.
OK, I got my hand in the way a little here, but there's a standard 2.5" laptop hard drive in the metal cage with all the round holes in it. The cage is held in place with three screws, the first of which I'm taking out. To the right is the DVD drive, and if we were replacing the DVD, the single screw on the tab to the right of the hard drive is all that's holding it in place.
	The second fastener holding the laptop hard drive cage is exposed easily enough, but try getting it out of the guts of the notebook if it rolls off on it's own. The third is in the back, after which the whole hard drive and cage lifts right out of the laptop. Note the white connector on the end of the cage that mates to the board.
Getting the any laptop hard drive out of the cage is simple enough if you have a quality screwdriver and strong wrists. There are four fasteners holding the drive itself into the cage, plus the add-on connector that often fools people into thinking that the laptop hard drive is something other than a standard 2.5" IDE drive.
	Like all things Sony, they sure do secure parts beyond any chance of breaking loose. It's possible at this point to pull the 2.5" hard drive out of the cage and leave the connector in place, but I figured I take it a part just for the sake of illustration. The IDE connector is secured on both sides, after which the VIO notebook hard drive with the connector can be lifted from the cage. Below I'm showing how the custom connector sits over the standard IDE connector. To install, simply reverse all of the steps above.
The internal laptop hard drive replacement is one of the trickier repair procedures for somebody working on laptops for the first time. Now imagine you replace the hard drive only to find out that it wasn't the problem! The Laptop Repair Workbook is all about understanding and troubleshooting problems so waste time and money fixing things that aren't broken. It includes an introductory section to hard drive troubleshooting, plus an advanced diagnostic flowchart for hard drive failure. The 191 page printable eBook can be purchased for instant download anywhere in the world, so you won't have to wait for the mailman to bring you the paperback.

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