Thread: Upgrade external storage

You storage drive a while ago, and now it is running out of space. The manufacturer of your external storage drive claims that it has no user replaceable parts. So you may plan to buy yourself a new one with greater capacity. But wait, we will show you how to upgrade the drive by safely hacking into the shell and replacing the older drive with a new, greater capacity drive. It's quite simple, quick and safe; still you must do it at your own risk. Just follow the simple steps and save thousands of rupees using this workshop. To demonstrate this workshop, we used a Maxtor OneTouch Mini 80 GB 2.5-inch hard drive and upgraded it with a new 160 G B hard drive.



STEP 1: All you will need for this workshop is one flat and one Philips-head screw driver. Now depending on your drives package type, carefully click open or unscrew the body of the storage drive.

Be careful, you may damage the casing, so handle it with care. Note down or
draw pictures of how you opened it, so it becomes easier to put it back once you are done with the upgrade.

STEP 2: After the case is open, carefully unscrew the hard drive and release the circuit board from the hard drive by slowly pulling it apart. If the circuit board is mounted on the hard drive (in some cases) you will need to unscrew the two and then release the hard drive.

STEP 3: Now that the hard drive is free, you need to check the type of the hard drive, whether it is a PATA or a SATA hard drive. We found that this particular hard drive is a SATA hard drive and so we got a SATA hard drive upgrade for the same. You will need to purchase a similar type of hard drive for your upgrade. You can buy one from any local computer hardware store or your engineer can get one for you. Just ask for the SATA or PATA laptop 2.5-inch hard drive.

STEP 4: Now that you have purchased your hard drive, just retrace your steps from where you started off and re-assemble the storage device back again with the new hard drive. Once it is all done, you need to test the drive to see if it is working. Connect the USB cord to your computer. Right click on 'My Computer' and click 'Manage', then under the 'Storage' section to the left, click on 'Disk Management'. Your new drive will be shown. Initialize the drive, partition it to your wish and format it. Congratulations! You have just saved a few thousand rupees by upgrading your external storage drive .