Replacing the Acer Aspire S3’s 7mm Hitachi HDD

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief December 13, 2011 · 2 min read

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The HDD on my Acer Aspire S3 conked out a couple of days ago. Don’t know what caused it but by the time I booted it up in the morning, the hard drive was already trashing the plates like crazy. This is the first time I’ve had a laptop HDD crashed on me.

Since this is my primary laptop, I am forced to have it repaired or do the repair myself.

With the right screw driver and a spare 2.5″ 750GB Western Digital HDD lying around, I thought I could replace it myself.

After a couple of hours struggling with the dozen or so screws, I managed to peel off the back cover and removed the damaged HDD.

Problem though is that when I was placing the new HDD, it would not fit on the bay. Turns out my spare laptop HDD was thicker than the one on the Aspire S3.

A few Google searches and I found the Hitachi Travelstar Z5K320 is just 7mm thin and not the 9.5mm most other regular laptop drives are. The highest capacity for this model is actually the 320GB used by the Aspire S3 which is from Hitachi. My enthusiasm fizzled.

I now have to look for a 7mm thin HDD so I can fix the Aspire S3 and get back to my regular work schedule. Problem is this model is rare and since we have a HDD crisis, it’s going to be expensive. Just find it really strange the drive gave up just like that.

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Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

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72 Comments

Jon · 12 years ago

Does anyone have a copy of the restore image for the Aspire S3 MS2346..? i can pay you….

ACER wants 46 dollars for it….

Jeff · 12 years ago

I must have a restore cd jt****@yzahoo.czom without the z’s

joe oloughlin · 13 years ago

Successfully installed Win 7
BUT
the 320gb HD isn’t shown in Computer
so all is going on the SSD. Other
software sees the 320gb so don’t know what is going on
Suggestions?
Thanks

David Haworth · 13 years ago

HI Wish I had seen this before I replaced my hard drive last week – I too popped in a ssd – ocz agility 3 I got on offer. and I too noticed the keyboard bulge !!! again removing the cover meant it fitted fine it works well too. I made an error ages ago of installing windows 8 and deleting the 20gb ssd drive from windows – anyone know how I can get it back – it’s still fitted but no idea where it is or what I have to do to get it showing up in hardware >??

Jonathan Taylor · 14 years ago

i replaced mine with a ocz agility 3 ssd i thought it would just fit being a 2.5 inch i was wrong it was pushing the keyboard up slightly so i removed the bottom on the ssd case and now it fits perfect

Qwerty · 14 years ago

has anyone actually installed an SSD in this ultrabook? Did you encounter any issues?

GhostHunter · 14 years ago

@Steen Larsen:

I played with the idea of replacing the original HDD with a SSD but the cost is prohibitive to get the 256gb or higher capacity SSD.

Ole Steen Larsen · 14 years ago

Replace it with SSD.
All Intel 320 and Crucial M4 SSD has only 7mm height

GhostHunter · 14 years ago

BTW, I replaced the original Hitachi HDD as a precaution of it failing in the near future.

GhostHunter · 14 years ago

I have an Acer S3 and I was able to purchase a Seagate 320GB 2.5in 7mm HDD from V-Mall Greenhills.

Openning the S3 chassis was simple enough. Unscrew all the screws and it’s open. Cloning the HDD’s contents took a couple of hours (or so) but once swapped, the S3 booted just fine.

BTW, I noticed that using my disk partition utility that I could access the SDD. I could re-format it so I can directly access it in Windows7. But for now, I left it as is.

Beaver · 14 years ago

just bought the s3,i can not belive you say it took you a few hours to get it open,16 screws small philips undone,used a credit card to separate the plastics it took less than 5 mins to open the chassis cover.tbh this laptop sux,if the hard drive fails then it’s knocked out on ebay a faulty hd,then back to a decent lappy tbh the ultra thin are going to be chuck away units at a very expensive price with no option for ram or hd upgrade. :(

Acer Aspire 5742 · 14 years ago

Wow, I’ve got to admire your bravery at attempting to replace the hard-drive yourself. It’s
unusual for Acer HD’s to malfunction.

Leslie · 14 years ago

No updates on this? Did you find a replacement HDD or SSD for the crashed Hitachi HDD?

Nic · 14 years ago

Acer should have used a SSD in this Ultrabook as other OEMs have. Spinning platters would not last long in a notebook designed to be lugged around.

BdGoals · 14 years ago

I heard Acer was one of the best in customer satisfaction, Their support canter sphreaded everywhere. Don’t they help us if something wrong happened with our S3?

Bon · 14 years ago

Sir Abe, haven’t you heard of eBay?

Alma Anonas-Carpio · 14 years ago

Ouchies and double ouchies.

Anton · 14 years ago

Sir, this is the SSD that might fit your s3 drive bay. http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/mydigitalssd-128gb-bullet-proof-1.8-inch-microsata-ssd-mdssd-bp-s18128/ MAganda umorder dyan sa mydigitaldiscount, kasi hindi nila dinideclare lagi ang laman ng parcel, kaya sa sampung inorder ko dyan, lahat walang tax na siningil sa akin, lagi sila declare ng super mura at ibang item declare nila.

coachjojoc · 15 years ago

Call Acer Service (Paz Guazon)
321-ACER.
Look for Christian

Hitachi or WD or whatever, it’s still Acer’s responsibility.

Christopher Anthony · 15 years ago

Sir Yuga,

I purchased 3 days ago a Seagate laptop HDD. Ganyan din sya kanipis, but they put a rubber on top of it para maging standard na 2.5 hdd. IMHO, by removing just the top rubber might fit in to your laptop. (although it might void the hdd warranty…)

Rich · 15 years ago

Mag-NEO craptop nalang kayo sir Abe! LOL

Kouichi · 15 years ago

Guess what, just today I had to replace my lappy’s SATA 2.5″ hdd. Just like Paul, I have the MBP too. AND YES the HDD is HITACHI. Same situation. I wake up and boot up, only to find that my HD died on me. Ugh, the sound was heart-wrenching. Mr. Abe, I did my own research and found out that SAMSUNG produces good drives. (Too bad SEAGATE already owns 91% of samsung’s hard drive biz) And yes I got myself one today. Was trying to decide between 320 and 500gb. Ended up going for the cheaper one. Hehehe. 320gb @ 3,500php. It feels like I made the right choice.

Richmond P. Nuguid · 15 years ago

Hindi na pala MBA ang primary laptop ni Sir Yuga.

Jiron · 15 years ago

Sir Abe, baka may mahanap kayo na SSD na 7mm din. Mahirap lang siguro maghanap.

dan · 15 years ago

had a same problem, my hitachi HDD died just after the 1 year standard warranty I have an acer desktop

Paul · 15 years ago

Yep, blame Hitachi. The hard drive on my macbook pro broke down after two years… guess who the manufacturer is? Hitachi! No wonder they’re going out of the hard drive business.

Andre · 15 years ago

is there a market place for high end laptop parts here? mahal mag import

nameless · 15 years ago

Nope. Don’t blame ACER for the defective HDD, blame hitachi instead. This will not happen if the HDD used is from Western Digital. I have the same experience, Acer laptop with a Toshiba HDD. It’s HDD failed earlier compared to those laptop having the same model but with a Western Digital HDD.

Ashley De Ocampo · 15 years ago

Claim the warranty. But you just fiddled the HDD so, ayun…

Jasmin · 15 years ago

Sabi na nga ba sirain ang S3 ng Acer eh, buti nalang at hindi ako na-temp bumili agad kahit mura. Really better to just wait for more ultrabooks in the market.

Chris ammerlaan · 15 years ago

Sir Abe, why not get a hard drive enclosure, and put your good drive into that, i know, a extra bit to carry with you, but your laptop will still work, until the prices come down next year

Name: IC DeaDPiPoL · 15 years ago

AFAIK WinXP, Vista, and 7 can’t boot off removable HDD(unless a hack is done). Next best choice other than buying a replacement HDD would be a GNU/Linux distro on either a flashdrive or an external drive (unfortunately that would me more hours in troubleshooting compatibility)