Modern 2.5" drives are generic. Same form factor, screw holes, and 44 pins in
the same place, no matter which brand. Notebook manufacturers take the generic
drives and customize them by adding drive caddies, mounting brackets, and
special drive adapters. The latter are intended to prevent wear and tear on the
44 pins from repeated insertion and removal of drives. The drive adapters
usually remove easily with a gentle tug or a nudge from a small screwdriver.

.... Ben Myers

On , "Bill Evans" wrote:


NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 05:08:51 MST
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 07:09:07 -0500
Xref: Hurricane-Charley alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq:5874
X-Received-Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 05:08:51 MST (be05.lga)


"Bill Evans" wrote in message
...
"Earl F. Parrish" wrote in message
news:2ISke.2209$5T2.764@trnddc01...

Most 2.5 inch hard drives use a 44-pin connector.

I had noticed the common 44 pins arranged in two rows on all the other
hard drives I was looking at, but what confused me was the caddy you're
bringing to my attention. It turned the array of 44 pins into an edge
connector.

Or is that another, separate piece of plastic beneath the caddy that I'm
seeing? Whatever it is, it mates with those 44 pins on one side, and has
a female edge connector on the other that looks roughly like one of the
sockets where you would plug in an old ISA card.



Alright, the caddy has an adapter underneath it that converts the array of
44 male pins into a female edge connector with 44 contact points.

I assume you're telling me most all 2.5 inch hard drives have that array of
44 male pins that gets converted by various different methods into something
that'll snap into the laptop in question? No wonder I've avoided fixing old
notebooks over the years.....



--
bill evans

Hartselle, AL

Freeman Dyson: "It's best not to limit our thinking. We can always
air-condition the Earth."