Hard Drive dimensions & enclosures

I've been looking through previous messages and replies regarding replacing hard drives. One response said that the internal drive is 2.5". My Toshiba HDD2182 40 GB drive measures 2.75 inches. Is this the actual measurement for what is identified as a 2.5" drive? My PowerBook was dropped and is no longer usable; however, I'd like to see if I can salvage information from the hard drive by using an enclosure for it. I'm concerned about accurate dimensions and I'm curious about what kind of external enclosure to buy. I have another PowerBook G4 and a desktop G4. Thanks for help to me and for all these many responses in the various categories of topics. All have been helpful to me over the years. . . .

Hi, Lee. Hard drive dimensions are standardized across the industry. All modern 2.5" drives will fit in any current 2.5" enclosure, and all modern 3.5" drives will fit in any current 3.5" enclosure.
I've always assumed that 2.5" or 3.5" is the diameter of the platter(s) inside the case, not the case itself. I don't know that for certain, but it doesn't matter: all drives of the same nominal size are interchangeable.
EDIT: Physically interchangeable, that is. There are different connection protocols: ATA and SATA. Those aren't interchangeable.

Similar Messages

Hard drives, externals, enclosures,... help?

If anyone could lend me their experience and or advice regarding what works well with the MBP (Santa Rosa chip) I would greatly appreciate it. I've attempted to do as much research on this myself, as I understand what works best is subjective a great deal of the time to what you intend to use the space for, however, after much research and acronym discussions +like you wouldn't believe+, I'm fairly confident my brain at this point, is toast.
My primary focus with this drive will be regarding rather large RAW files, working with Aperture and Lightroom, and with any luck being able to do so while hopefully avoiding lagging the workflow process much, if at all. That being, I'm guessing firewire 800, possibly Sata via the expresscard solutions available is the route to take? As far as enclosures and self-built externals go, seagate barracuda's 7200.11 seem to be spot on from what I can find mixed with a lot of people talking up OWC's Mercury Elite.... In the opinion of those familiar with this setup and possibly having made and or used others, would you recommend this option more so than the next or if not, any set reason? Would firewire be fully sufficient for what I'm looking to do or is it worth the money to invest in sata considering progression of technology in that avenue or is this perpendicular recording all it's hyped up to be?
From what I can tell, it seems as though the OWC/Seagate option is the best investment (based on what I'm looking for) in relation to size, speed and overall reliability, but being that I personally have limited knowledge on this subject, I figured I would ask here for any additional insight you guys might be willing to offer.
Thanks for your time.

Hi, mcholley, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
I can't suggest any remedy for your optical drive not reading audio CDs but having no trouble with data CDs, except to say it's apparently a software problem, not hardware-based.
After replacing your hard drive, did you reinstall your operating system from scratch on it, or did you restore your OS from a backup you had made?
The disappearance of your external drives (are they USB or FireWire?) may be power-related. Are they externally powered, or are you powering them from the USB or FireWire bus? If they're bus-powered, are you connecting both of them at once? That won't work: together they demand more power from the bus than it can supply, and while they may spin, they won't mount. Connect only one of them at a time. Is either of them detected by Apple System Profiler when just one is connected to the Powerbook? Does it mount on the desktop then?
If you've been able to connect both drives to the Powerbook at the same time in the past, and both have mounted OK, then there's been some hardware change recently, other than your hard drive replacement, that has caused the loss of external drive detection. Is it possible that during your recent operations you've turned off one or both of the external drives, or disconnected it/them from the Powerbook, without dismounting it from the desktop first? Depending on what, if anything, the drive was doing at the time, that can make a FireWire drive unmountable and all the data on it inaccessible. In that case it may be necessary to erase and reformat the drive. I don't know whether the same is true of USB drives.
Do you have another Mac to which you can connect the drives, to see whether they show up on it? If they do, you might have to consider the possibility that the port(s) to which you've been connecting them on your Powerbook is bad.

Older iMac hard drive in enclosure won't boot long to new iMac?

I have just received my new iMac i7 with the THIN case.....it is pretty awesome! I removed the hard drive from my previous iMac (2006 Intel core 2 duo) and put it into an enclosure hoping to retreive my old files. Here is the problem.....the old hard drive (250GB) will not stay booted long enough to transfer my files. The enclosure is a Sabrent 3.5" SATA hard drive USB 3.0 enclosure. It will appear for approx. 20-30 seconds, and then the message:
"The disk was not ejected properly. If possible, always eject a disk before unplugging it or turning it off. To eject a disk, select it in the Finder and choose File > Eject. The next time you connect the disk, Mac OS X will attempt to repair any damage to the information on the disk."
It will disappear from the desktop and I am unable to access it any longer. I am able to open the older hard drive and can open older folders, etc. while it is mounted on the desktop.
A little background on the older iMac.....it quit working completely, would not turn on, no fan noise, no hard drive spinning, NOTHING. I ordered a replacement power supply and installed it......but still nothing. I can only assume the logic board is dead. Since it was what the genious at the Apple store called "vintage", we deicided to upgrade, hence the new iMac. (And it was 7 years old after all!!)
What can I do to get the info I need from the older hard drive? Like I said, it's 7 years old and has a LOT of info. I WAS able to backup pictures, music, and some misc. work to an external hard drive before it died....but I need the "little" things like my address book, calendar, old emails, bookmarks, etc.
Thanks in advance for any help in this matter!

If this is an enclosure that is USB powered that may be the problem. Mac are notorious for not putting out enough power from the USB port to properly power these USB powered drives. I suggest you get a SATA to USB Adapter that has it own AC power supply to power the drive.

Can't put hard drive into enclosure

I rencently took out my hard drive (Bay A) out of my 1.6 Ghz G5 tower and when I tried to put the hard drive into the enclosure there are big black screws that are blocking the way. I bought many Phillips Screwdriver, trying to unscrew those 4 black screws and was unsuccessful! What am I suppose to do now?! The harddrive is still connected to the enclosure but I can't put it in!

I can only go by the drive screws that I have unscrewed in the past. The Drive Screws are shown in Figure 6 here
http://www.info.apple.com/usen/cip/pdf/g5/073-0851.pdf
There is a better picture here
http://www.mac-pro.com/922-6253?sc=2&category=408
I found that the centre of the screw with the cross-head is metal, but the outer curved dome-shaped piece is plastic. If you insert a small flat-bladed screwdriver or blunt knife, carefully, under the outer edge of the plastic collar, where it touches the drive, it can be lifted up and off, exposing the flat side of the central metal screw - which can then be gripped with needle-nosed pliers, or similar, and turned in the same direction as you would to unscrew it with a screwdriver, anti-clockwise.
If your drive screws are solid metal, including the outer curved collar, then you will have to get someone to help you.
Be of Good Cheer - every screw comes out in the end! (one way or another) Good Luck.

New hard drive and enclosure for the old one

Hi all,
I'm looking at putting a larger hard drive into my Ally PB. I checked OWC and they're so ridiculously cheap I'm gonna put a 160GB into it. I intend to buy a F/Wire 800 enclosure the old 2.5" hard drive. Now, here is my question: If I remove the existing hard drive and drop into a FW enclosure will I have to reformat the drive or will I be able to use it as a start up disc as is with all the current data and apps on it?

Hey Silly Rabbit! We meet again. I didn't even realize who the original poster was. I thought it was odd that the person responding was you but it didn't match the thread I remember you from. Then I noticed that this was a different thread but you were the one asking for help!
Silly me!
That's perfect! The only interface you're missing there is eSATA. Then you'd be set for life, with all current interfaces supported.
There's one for that too, if you're interested:
FireWire 400/800, USB 2.0, eSATA Combo Enclosure
You can find them on eBay too.

Hard Drive Dimensions

I have an old Power Mac 6500/275. Is there some way I can find out the dimensions of the hard drive without taking it out and measuring it?

That Mac, like almost many others, uses a "regular" nominal 3.5 inch (platter size) drive. The drives are about four inches wide. The drive must be a "one-third height" (1 inch tall). "Half-height" (1.5 inches tall) and "Full Height (3 inches tall) have no hope of fitting.
It has the usual 40-pin IDE cable and 4-pin "Molex" power connector.
The drive is mounted with four screws from below on a plastic sled with a locking tang in the middle. You press the locking tang ( I think it is toward the drive) and pull, and the sled with drive mounted should slide out.
Message was edited by: Grant Bennet-Alder

Hard Drive Case/Enclosure for dead G4

Hi everyone, I am now joining the ranks of owners of a seemingly dead G4 who hears the fan of death, seeing the rotating beachvolleyball and then- NOTHING. FREEZE.
So, which hard drive case would be workable? (G4, 15 inch ibook) I am looking for a ata firewire/usb case. What's out there and works? (without braking the bank, yet again)
Ideas? I basically would like to pull off the data and if necessary reuse the uncompromised hard drive.

Hi,
Welcome to the Discussions.
OWC sells good enclosures (their own brand). You need one for a 2.5" drive.
John

Y50 Hard Drive Dimensions

I just bought a new Y50-70 and I want to replace the hard drive. The hardware maintenance manual for the Y40 and Y50 series laptops states that the hard drive that comes installed is a 2.5 inch 7mm drive. However, I have heard conflicting reports that people have been able to fit 9.5mm drives inside their machines.
Is there space for a larger form factor hard drive? What have you managed to install inside your machine?
I am interested because I was hoping to install a WD Black Dual Drive, which comes with a 120GB SSD and a 1TB HD, but it is a 9.5mm thick drive.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

freeagent2098 wrote:
The Samsung EVO SSD works great on the Lenovo y50-70,
I'm thinking of purchasing one myself after watching a guy install one in a YouTube video.
I recently purchased a Lenovo y50-70 myself, but I only had it for 2 days before the hard drive failed.
I'm sitting here at home typing this on my cell phone while waiting for a replacement.
Sad Days.. I think the only replacement needed here is with the low quality drives they put in these machines. It's a pitty, really.
There is a video on that with the back open? Awesome! I need to go find it! Thanks!

LaCie Hard Drive External Enclosure

If someone has a LaCie D2 Quadra External Drive --
Can the case be safely opened so that i can replace the Drive?
It has connections for Firewire 400 & 800; USB and SATA as well as power. It is being used for TM.
There appear to be only 4 Phillips screws holding the case together.
Nothing in search.

Yeap - I have... in fact...
http://www.init6tech.com/apple/lacie-d2-quadra-drive-replacement
I should warn you... their controllers have issues when a handfull of blocks go bad on their drives. Bad sectors on a drive is nothing to worry about. (unless that number increases all the time)... When connected to a computer, the filesystem just mark them as bad and you are done. When used in a RAID (again, connected to a computer) it marks them bad on both drives (to avoid problems)..
When you use a USB/FireWire etc bridge... you have no block access to the drive and if a drive gets a bad block then your whole drive just basically reports the error (from the bridge to the machine).
So check your drives in your computer first... make sure it has no bad blocks... then you can use it on your enclosure. If the enclosure stops working (and LaCies are well known to do that) then it could very well be the block issue. Try the drives on your computer and you can use it for something else... (just not for RAID 0 on a enclosure any more).
and no... if the enclosure dies.. moving the drives to your computer will not help you recover the information... so always keep a backup
RM

What hard drive enclosure to purchase for HP Pavilion dv6000?

I am trying to find a hard drive case/enclosure for my 2005 HP Pavilion dv6000 laptop. I want to retrieve all of the data from my hard drive because I can no longer charge the laptop. I have tried two different types of hard drive enclosure, but neither worked. Can you tell me the proper model to order?

Hi:
One of them will work.
You need to remove the hard drive connector interface that connects the hard drive to the motherboard.
This thing pulls off the drive. You should be using a SATA to usb notebook hard drive enclosure.

Can I recover data from a hard drive that has crashed?

My computer had frozen up so I had to restart it by holding down the power button. After I had done this, I kept getting a recurring kernel panic error. I had taken my MacBook the Apple Store and the tech who looked at it said that my hard drive was no longer good and that I would either have to replace it or purchase a new laptop. Regardless of whether I replace my hard drive or just purchase a new laptop, would there be any way to get my data that I lost off my old hard drive. I have some stuff backed up, but not recent data.
I appreciate any advice. Thanks

You could try putting the old hard drive into an external hard drive case since it sounds like the drive isn't completely dead.
Here's a cheap SATA external hard drive case on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/SATA-Hard-Drive-Case-Enclosure/dp/B001AAVA08/ref=pd_cp_e_0

I have to replace my hard drive in my 2008 macbook. HOW DO I BUY A NEW HARD DRIVE???

The apple genius said I can easily buy one online and a 10 year old could put it in. However, all of the hard drives I'm seeing mention PC rather than Mac.

SATA drives are the same for Mac, PC or PlayStation. It's the way that they're formatted that make the difference.
For a hard drive try Newegg.com http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=380&name=Laptop-Hard-Dr ives&Order=PRICE
Or OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/
Here's instructions on replacing the hard drive http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=45088
To transfer your current hard drive I like the free application Carbon Copy Cloner. It makes a bootable copy of everything on your hard drive http://www.bombich.com/index.html You'll need a cheap SATA external hard drive case. Put the new drive in the case and clone your old drive to the new one. Then replace your old hard drive with the new one.
With the new drive plugged in, open Disk Utility. It's in the Utililities folder in your Applications folder. You should see the new drive in the left hand column along with your other drives. Click on the new drive and select the Erase tab. Set the format value to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click the Erase button. After that has finished select the Partition tab. Type in a Name for your hard drive and select how many partitions you want from the Volume Scheme. The usual setting is one partition. Click on the Options button after you've selected a partition to make sure it's set for GUID. Then click the Apply button and after the partitioning is done quit Disk Utility. Your new drive should now appear on your desktop. Then clone your old drive to the new one.
Here's a cheap SATA external hard drive case on eBay http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-5-SATA-HDD-HARD-DRIVE-EXTERNAL-ENCLOSURE-CASE-BOX-/120 636286623?pt=PCC_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item1c167ba69f

Can I boot my computer from an external hard drive

I have already used the (internal) hard drive to boot my computer. If it is bootable while outside the computer, that is only the (internal) hard drive being outside the computer running while the computer is on then I will buy an external herd drive enclosure so that it can do so.
I want to boot my computer using one of my internal hard drives using an external hard drive enclosure so that I do not wear out the the hard drive ports
I am running a Late 2008 MacBook unibody with Mac OS X (10.6.8). The hard drive I plan to boot from has been used internally and is an ssd hard drive, I formated it before I started using it.

... that part is for using an internal hard drive and as I stated that is the one I am trying to avoid wearing by daily swapping. Not only is it an inconvenience to swap them, but it is not an activity that is usually expected to be performed by most users, so likely this part is not meant to be used for that and that would make it not built for multiple hard drives swaps making it prematurely wear out.
That is exactly correct. We do not do that.
It is not necessary to get inside your computer to connect a hard drive. You can connect a second (or third, or even more) drive externally. And if the drive is correctly formatted, you can boot from it. An external hard drive enclosure costs less than < $10. You install the drive in the enclosure, and you can connect it externally to a usb port on the computer.
A typical enclosure for a SATA laptop drive looks like this:
http://www.amazon.com/SATA-Hard-Drive-Case-Enclosure/dp/B001AAVA08
In summary then, keep one drive inside the computer. Always. Use any other drives you need as externals. If you have many external usb devices, plug them into a powered hub. This way nothing needs to be regularly connected and disconnected.

New Hard drive installed, how to connect old drive to transfer data.

Hi,
I recently had my 13" White Macbook repaired and they upgraded my 120 Gb hard drive to a newer 160 gb version. They told me I would be able to transfer the data across to my new hard drive relatively easily and cheaply, since the hard drive itself wasn't damaged.
I spoke to apples recommended data recovery company kroll on track, and they informed me I would only need to get hold of the right connection for my hard drive to be able to connect it to my laptop and transfer it over.
Can anyone enlighten me to what connection I might need to get and where I might be able to get it from please?
If you need any more details please ask
Cheers

The best way would be to get a USB 2.0 2.5" SATA Hard Drive External Enclosure Case. You can get them on Ebay UK cheaply http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-2-0-2-5-SATA-HDD-Hard-Drive-External-Case-Enclosure-/2 80553195616?pt=UKCollectables_HardDriveEnclosuresRL&hash=item4152460860 for £4.50 from a London seller.
You can then use Carbon Copy Cloner http://www.bombich.com/index.html a free cloning program to transfer everything over to the new drive.

Need to move my applications to new OS and Hard Drive, but Tiger doesn't have Time Machine, right?

I updated my RAM, put in a new hard drive, and updated my OS from tiger to snow leopard (no I'm NOT ready for lion) all at the same time on my 2007 MacBook. Though I backed up general files on my hard drive, I didn't do a full system backup, and now all of my beautiful applications (i.e. Office, Photoshop, etc.) no longer exist. Can I get these back if I put in my old drive and back it up somehow? Or is it all gone now that I'm on a new OS on a new hard drive? Trying to figure out how to properly back up applications and info from Tiger on my original HD and get it all onto my new HD which is functioning with Snow Leopard. I don't think Time Machine works on Tiger so I'm confused. I have an external hard drive I can use as well.

Here's a cheap SATA external hard drive case on eBay http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-5-SATA-HDD-HARD-DRIVE-EXTERNAL-ENCLOSURE-CASE-BOX-/120 636286623?pt=PCC_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item1c167ba69f
Just put your old drive in the case and plug it into one of your USB ports. For MicroSoft Office you can just move the folder from the old drive's Application Folder to the new drive's Application Folder. PhotoShop might not work as well. Office has everything it needs in it's folder while PhotoShop seems to need something else.

Hard Drive dimensions & enclosures

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