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.
Sir Abe, haven’t you heard of eBay?
Ouchies and double ouchies.
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.
Call Acer Service (Paz Guazon)
321-ACER.
Look for Christian
Hitachi or WD or whatever, it’s still Acer’s responsibility.
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…)
Mag-NEO craptop nalang kayo sir Abe! LOL
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.
Hindi na pala MBA ang primary laptop ni Sir Yuga.
Sir Abe, baka may mahanap kayo na SSD na 7mm din. Mahirap lang siguro maghanap.
had a same problem, my hitachi HDD died just after the 1 year standard warranty I have an acer desktop
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.
is there a market place for high end laptop parts here? mahal mag import
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.
Claim the warranty. But you just fiddled the HDD so, ayun…
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.
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
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)
so it really conked out? not dislodged or disconnected? promise, nakapagbackup pa ako a few hours bago ko sinoli sayo.
what a really bad timing..
Isn’t it too early for a relatively new machine to have its HDD conk out? QA issues na kaagad hehe
Acer hopefully can provide service to your unit.
di po ba under warranty pa yang S3 nyo? I think Acer can repair that for free…but then again, nabuksan nyo na po eh. Heheheh
bad timing for the HDD to bog down…probably due to its thickness, maybe it’s too sensitive.