Hello friends! We receive a lot of letters on our website asking us to describe the replacement. DVD drive on additional HDD or SSD in a laptop, which is what we will do in today’s article. For readers who do not quite understand what we are talking about, I will briefly explain.

Now in computer stores and andOnline supermarkets for computer and digital equipment sell special adapters. SlimDVD -> 2.5 at a price of 1200-1300 rubles.The laptop's hard drive is installed into the adapter itself, then the adapter is inserted into the laptop instead of the optical drive, and an SSD solid-state drive is installed in place of the laptop's HDD. As a result, you have two hard drives in your laptop. You install the operating system on the SSD(more advanced users can simply transfer Windows from HDD to SSD), and use the laptop hard drive to store files. In my opinion, it is a very good idea to remove the drive and install an HDD instead, since if you ask you when you last used the drive, you won’t even remember.

Toshiba laptop hard drive in a special Espada SS95 adapter

All your questions on this topic:

1. Is it possible to replace a DVD-ROM (disk drive) with an additional SSD on your own, without resorting to a service, using a special adapter? Isn’t this too difficult?

2. Will an SSD drive installed instead of a drive be visible in the BIOS and is it possible to install an operating system on it?

3. Is it better to install a regular laptop HDD in this adapter, and install an SSD solid-state drive instead of the HDD? If yes, then how in this case can you transfer the Windows 7, 8.1 operating system to an SSD from a regular laptop HDD?

To install an SSD drive in a laptop instead of a disk drive, you don’t need to be a computer wizard, because you don’t have to disassemble the entire laptop, you just need to remove the disk drive and hard drive, but still to the point needs to be taken into accountin all seriousness, workcarefully and slowly.

Friends, this article is provided for your information and if your laptop is still under warranty, then after such a replacement you will naturally lose this warranty. If you are not confident in yourself, make such a replacement in the service, but still read the article first to decide what exactly you will install in such an adapter - a regular laptop HDD or an SSD, I recommend HDD, and install the SSD in the standard location of the hard drive laptop.

Get ready for the fact that in most cases not everything will go smoothly (I deliberately chose a difficult example so that you know some of the pitfalls), since such DVD -> HDD adapters are not officially made by any laptop manufacturing company, but despite this, a large Some of these Chinese devices work great.

• Note: First remove from the laptop battery, if it is impossible to remove it, then be sure to disconnect it from the motherboard; this should always be done when disassembling a laptop. By doing this you will insure yourself and your laptop from possible troubles. When working, do not touch the components located on the laptop motherboard with your hands or a screwdriver.

Select and buy an adapter for HDD installations instead of a disk drive on a laptop

One of my friends bought this Espada SS95 9.5 mm SATA adapter for 1200 rubles

and asked me to replace the DVD-ROM with an HDD, but did not take into account the fact that there are two types of drives in laptops: a regular drive 12.7 mm high and an ultra thin drive from 9.5 mm. My friend’s laptop is not new and has a 12.7 mm drive, but despite this, the 9.5 mm adapter was still installed and sits firmly in its place.

Still, I advise you to buy an adapter the size of your drive and there will be fewer problems with installation.

When choosing an adapter for installing an HDD instead of a disk drive on a laptop, keep in mind that some adapters come with special “ears” and such an adapter can be easily removed back.

Removing the laptop drive

Friends, articles have already been written and are almost ready on how to make such a replacement on HP, Toshiba, ASUS laptops, and we will start with SONY.

Turn off our laptop and turn it upside down.

Disconnecting the battery

If the battery is not removable, then be sure to disconnect the battery connector from the motherboard!

Disconnecting the DVD-ROM

Don't rush to disassemble your entire laptop! To disconnect the disk drive on a laptop, you usually do not need to remove the bottom cover of the laptop or, even worse, disassemble the entire laptop, but only need to unscrew two screws. If you have never done this, type in a search engine the request - How to remove a disk drive from (hereinafter referred to as your laptop model).

Disconnecting the laptop hard drive

In case of SONY laptop There are no problems at all, we unscrew two screws and remove the cover and here is our hard drive. Unscrew two more screws

And carefully pull the silicone tab, the HDD is removed from its place.

Installing a laptop hard drive into the Espada SS95 adapter

In my opinion, we need to install a laptop hard drive in this adapter, and in the rightful place of the HDD we will install an SSD solid-state drive, onto which we will install or transfer the operating system. This needs to be done because the SATA port of the drive (up to 1.5 Gb/s) is often slower than the SATA port (6 Gb/s) of the hard drive.

Located on SSD Windows will work much faster than it would on a regular HDD. Almost all laptop HDDs have a 2.5 form factor, just like SSDs, so an SSD will fit perfectly in place of the HDD.

The laptop hard drive is located in special “slides” and is attached to them with four screws; unscrew them and release the HDD.

P adapter Espada SS95

Now, friends, the time has come for our adapter. We have it in this box,

In addition to the adapter itself, the plastic packaging contains a small screwdriver, a bag of screws, a plastic blanking panel and a spacer.

We take out the adapter

First, you need to remove the special fasteners from the drive and attach them to our adapter.

Note. Located on top optical drive, and below is our adapter. This mount on the drive must be removed and attached with the same two screws to the adapter. Using this mount, the adapter will be attached to the laptop body.

We install the laptop hard drive into the adapter and carefully insert it into the SATA connector.

Then we install the “spacer” in the adapter.

The hard drive in the adapter is secured not only with the help of a spacer. Turn the adapter over and tighten the screw securing the hard drive in the adapter.

On the other side of the adapter there is also a screw, only it is somewhat “recessed” in its place; we screw it in using a thin screwdriver.

Now remove another mount from the drive

and attach it to the adapter.

We put a plug on the adapter

We install the adapter in the laptop in place of the drive.

We attach the sleds remaining from the laptop hard drive to the solid-state drive

and install the SSD in place of the HDD and secure it to the laptop case with two screws.

Close the hard drive bay with a cover and secure it with screws. We also attach the adapter to the laptop body with two screws. We put the battery in place.

Side view of our laptop.

Installing Windows 8.1 on SSD

We enter the BIOS and see only one 120 GB SSD solid state drive; a regular laptop HDD connected via an adapter is not seen by the BIOS. This sometimes happens on various laptops, but nevertheless, if you install it on SSD operating system system, then the space of the HDD connected via the adapter will be available.

Program Windows installations 8.1 still sees both drives: Disk 0 (SSD) and Disk 1 (HDD).

We install the Windows 8.1 operating system on the SSD.

We go to Disk Management and see our SSD solid state drive (120 GB capacity) with installed Windows 8.1 and a regular HDD (capacity 320 GB) with Windows 7 installed.

What happens if you leave one adapter in your laptop without an SSD?

You see for yourself, there are no defined hard drive models in the BIOS,

Conclusion:

Let’s say you are happy with everything in your laptop, then you definitely shouldn’t indulge in such experiments, another thing is, if you are an enthusiast and want to get the most out of your laptop, then definitely, our article is for you!

Greetings! A long time ago I had a desire to make a small upgrade to my old laptop and breathe new life into it. On this moment The best thing to do for my junk is to add RAM and replace the ancient HDD with a new SSD. Since I already have the maximum possible four gigabytes of RAM, the hard drive had to be replaced. Modern SSD drives are expensive, and there is never too much space. It was decided old disk install the DVD drive in place. Installation, tests, conclusions - please under the cat...

The purchased 250 GB Samsung 750 EVO SSD was logically installed in place of the standard HDD drive. My native disk was 320 GB, which is not much more. Options for using the old hard drive weight. Sell ​​and recoup part of the money for the purchase of an SSD, buy a box with USB interface and use it as a portable disk or just some kind of adapter, or install it in place of the DVD drive, which I have not used for a long time. Having defeated the “toad”, it was decided not to sell the disc. Since I already have a portable HDD, the choice fell on the so-called Caddy or Optibay device.

Specifications

• Device thickness standard: 12.7 mm
• Interface: SATA
• Disk size and interface: SATA(2.5")
• Dimensions: 12.6*12.7*1.27cm

• Caddy - 1 pc.
• Screwdriver - 1 pc.
• Bolts - 8 pcs.
• Seal - 1 pc.

The screwdriver is very cheap and not particularly convenient, but if you don’t have a tool at hand and want to install the disk right now, then it will do the job.

The bolts were very useful. They help keep the disc in place, but not in a traditional way. I will describe the installation a little later. The rubber, perforated block most likely serves to more securely fix the disc in the pocket and to reduce vibration.

Disassembly

Installation in a laptop

The first thing you need to do is get the standard drive for your laptop. Each laptop does this differently, but the principle is the same. In my case, it was necessary to unscrew the cover of the compartment under which there was a drive mounting bolt. I unscrewed it and pressed a small pedal, the DVD moved out a little from its saddle. Now you can take it out freely. After we compared the dimensions and checked that the adapter fits freely into the DVD drive, we can install the disc in the Caddy. To securely fix the disk, you need to screw four bolts into it until they stop, put the disk in the “pocket” and slide it into the SATA interface. The bolts will rest against special protrusions on the adapter body. Thus, the disk will be firmly fixed, but for greater reliability it is necessary to install a rubber seal at the rear end of the disk.

In this form, you can already connect the adapter to the laptop and turn it on. But it will not be recorded, which is not safe. The adapter is attached to the laptop case using a special fastener, which must be unscrewed from your standard DVD drive and fixed to the new adapter. These mounts come in a variety of shapes, but have a standard hole pattern for mounting on the drive housing and our Caddy.
The final touch is to bring beauty. From the disk drive I remove the decorative cover with the button, which is held on by several latches, and install it on the Caddy. Everything is standard here too. All holes for latches are in place. All that remains is to install the adapter in its rightful place, secure it with a bolt to the laptop body and close the compartment. You can turn it on and enjoy :).

Testing

conclusions

There are a great variety of similar adapters at very different prices. I can’t say exactly what the difference is between them. In my case, this is one of its cheapest representatives. Data transfer rate per SSD disk does not differ from the speed of work in a regular place. Perhaps there will be some difference in working with the SATA 3 interface, but I cannot verify this. I have no complaints about the build quality. Everything fit like family. I hope it will serve and please me for a long time.

I hope I helped you decide whether to purchase the product and, in particular, this adapter. If I missed something, I will try to answer everything questions asked in comments.

A short video review for greater clarity

That's all. Thank you all for your attention to my review! Happy shopping and good luck!

You can purchase PLN adapters at

Drives for recording CD/DVD discs are increasingly losing relevance over time, because now almost everything modern devices capable of reproducing information through USB drives, i.e., for example, flash drives, external hard drives. And it turns out that in those laptops that were purchased with a disk drive, this same disk drive sits idle and is almost never used. However, it can be replaced with an additional hard drive, thereby giving you one more place to connect the HDD.

In this article I will tell you how you can install a regular HDD in a laptop instead of a CD/DVD drive.

It is especially important to change the CD/DVD drive in those laptops that initially have only one standard bay for installing a hard drive or SSD. And if you want to install a high-speed SSD instead of a hard drive, then this turns out to be impossible for many. For the reason that the price is 1 GB. The space on the SSD is very large, i.e. Such a disk with a large capacity will be very expensive. And if you install a small-capacity SSD (approximately 100-200 GB is very popular), then this amount of space is unlikely to be enough for anyone. Only one system, for example, Windows 10 with all the necessary programs will eat up to 150 GB. Therefore, a good solution in this case is to install a small SSD instead of a regular hard drive, and replace the drive with a hard drive, either an old one or a new one with an even larger capacity.

For desktop computers, all this is irrelevant. IN system unit There is always room to connect additional HDD or SSD drives.

There is no point in installing an SSD drive instead of a drive. Because drives operate on a slower SATA port and a high-speed SSD drive simply will not reveal its full potential. Therefore, instead of a disk drive, it makes sense to install only an HDD disk!

The principle of replacing a CD/DVD drive with an HDD hard drive

The replacement process itself is not at all complicated, but you will need to buy one part - an adapter, which I will discuss below.

So, point by point:

All! A hard drive is connected instead of an unnecessary CD/DVD drive. You can turn on the computer and work :)

Possible problem when installing an HDD instead of a disk drive and its solution

When connecting a hard drive instead of a laptop's CD/DVD drive through a special adapter, a problem may arise that I encountered on 2 laptops.

It lies in the fact that after installing the HDD through an adapter instead of a disk drive, the computer stops turning off normally and also goes into various sleep modes. When you try to perform one of these actions, the computer ends all programs, but does not completely turn off. At the same time, the fans continue to work, and at increased speeds, and the computer may turn off or go into a blackout. desired mode sleep after more than an hour, and may continue to work and heat up endlessly.

When I first encountered this problem, I spent a very long time looking for the cause, went through all the drivers and looked for the problem in the system itself and installed programs, because the hardware itself is all in good condition.

It turned out to be very simple. There is a switch on the adapter (sled) that connects the HDD instead of the disk drive. I was not able to find out what exactly it switches, but apparently some kind of operating mode. Here's what it looks like:

Just move this switch from starting position into one of the two available ones, after which you install the HDD in the laptop again and check if the situation has changed. If not, move the switch to the last 3rd position. In this case, everything should work 100% as it should.

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 of the electronic board. Service centers repairs hard drives they don't do it.

An 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, please note 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 binary system, in which 1 GB = 1024 MB, and manufacturers indicate the hard drive capacity in 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's memory is used by the computer system to store service information.

By method of storing information

Recently, a new type of hard drive has appeared on the market and is becoming popular, in which information is stored not on magnetic disks, but with the help of 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 completely depends on the budget allocated for replacing the hard drive.

There is a third, combined type of hard drive for laptops. On a regular board hard HDD The disk additionally installs SSD memory chips, 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 it is written what is hidden under them.

Attention before removing hard disk, SSD, DVD, memory sticks or any other device, to avoid failure of the laptop, it is imperative to turn it off, disconnect the power adapter from the network 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 the connector determines only its capabilities, and the actual write-read speed is determined by the technical characteristics of the hard drive installed in the laptop. For example, a modern, one of the best Seagate hard drives with a capacity of 3 TB has a maximum read/write speed of only 150 MB/s for large volumes of information, and only 1 MB/s for small files. 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 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 is the optimal type of memory for a home computer with a rewriting resource of at least 3,000 cycles;
• 3D NAND is the most expensive and fastest memory with a rewrite life of more than 10,000 cycles.

At first glance, it seems that 3000 rewriting cycles to a 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 real 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 chips of any type of memory, in 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 basic technical hard parameters disk, which guarantee the possibility of installing it in a laptop, you can begin to select and purchase it.

On new ones hard drives x not installed 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 the new drive to your laptop, run the cloning program and wait until all the information is 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 further plans for use old tough disk. 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 for connecting hard disk to the 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 they provide USB bus a laptop is enough and additional source no power required.

For installing 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 a standard USB cable 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

Today, DVD discs 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 it in a laptop instead of a useless DVD drive. second hard disk.

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 it will be possible to study how the drive is designed 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. Computer and digital equipment stores have 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 need to perform preparatory work, which consists of transferring the corner with the threaded hole and the front panel from the DVD drive to the 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.

The decorative plastic panel installed on the purchased adapter (lower 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 use the blade of a screwdriver to press 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 system files Windows and storing frequently used information on an SSD drive, the acoustic noise that the hard drive previously emitted disappeared, and the laptop began to operate almost silently.