where is the hard drive located in my Sony Vaio laptop?

[jworms]

i am trying to replace the hard drive in my sony vaio pcg-z1a laptop, but am having some trouble uncovering the location of it. it's not really labeled on the bottom and i'm not sure how to dissassemble the laptop without breaking anything. any help would be most appreciated!

thanks in advance!

 

[imported_Phil]

Usually it's behind a removable panel on the underside of the laptop. Find the rectangular sections of plastic, and remove the screws holding them in place. Remove the panels, and the disk should be behind one of them.

Sony laptops occasionally have the drive in the side of the laptop as well.

 

[imported_Phil]

For example, here's the bottom of my laptop. You can see the hard disk bay at the top left, with the battery at the bottom. This is with the laptop rotated 90 degrees.

You should have a tiny picture of a cylinder on the panel, which designates the hard disk bay.

 

[gsaldivar]

Unfortunately, I believe the Z1 model requires a partial chassis disassembly in order to access the HD. This involves removing retainer screws on the underside to release the keyboard, then lifting the entire top bezel up to reveal the HD bay beneath the palmrest.

I wasn't able to locate any free information on the web regarding the procedure, and can only recommend that you contact Sony for service, as this particular model may be damaged by removing the wrong screws from the underside.

If you'd like to try at your own risk, I put a copy of the Z Series user manual online for you. You will find a partial illustration of the above procedure under the section that guides you through a memory upgrade.

http://intermvp.com/anand/Z1_H_UK.pdf

Good luck! :thumbsup:

 

[imported_Phil]

^^ Hell, you're right; I completely forgot about that.

I have in fact seen this ridiculous mounting method used in a previous job about a year ago, and was rather surprised when I did.

 

[gsaldivar]

Originally posted by: Phil
I have in fact seen this ridiculous mounting method used in a previous job about a year ago, and was rather surprised when I did.

I really think Sony needs to design their laptops so that components are a bit more accessible. The bezel removal on some of the older "SuperSlim" series requires enough strength to deform or crack the plastic if you are unlucky...

 

[jworms]

Originally posted by: gsaldivar
Unfortunately, I believe the Z1 model requires a partial chassis disassembly in order to access the HD. This involves removing retainer screws on the underside to release the keyboard, then lifting the entire top bezel up to reveal the HD bay beneath the palmrest.

I wasn't able to locate any free information on the web regarding the procedure, and can only recommend that you contact Sony for service, as this particular model may be damaged by removing the wrong screws from the underside.

If you'd like to try at your own risk, I put a copy of the Z Series user manual online for you. You will find a partial illustration of the above procedure under the section that guides you through a memory upgrade.

http://intermvp.com/anand/Z1_H_UK.pdf

Good luck! :thumbsup:

thanks for the link, it helped me a little. i have the keyboard out and access to the memory. i then tried to unscrew anything i could find that had a screw in it on the bottom of the laptop. this led to the spotting of the hard drive. my only problem is now i can't lift the bottom panel enough so that i have full access to the hard drive. it is stuck on something but i don't know what and i don't want to break it. i have not found any more screws to unscrew unfortunately. any ideas?

here's pictures of what i have so far:
(yes those are my bedsheets, yes i am 21 years old, and sorry about the size of the pictures)

Picture 1
Picture 2

edit: i guess i don't know how to post pictures on this forum.