How-to replace the U100 harddisk?
Posted by Bob on May 24, 2008
From the moment I got myself the Libretto U100 I wondered how to replace the slow harddisk. Within the first week I opened the Libretto as far as possible and I had a short look inside the little machine. The harddisk was nowhere to be found, although I knew it had to be somewhere at the bottom.
After a day or to on Google, I found myself the original replacement manual! In that manual there are step-by-step instructions how to disassemble my Libretto u100 completely and finally (that chapter is located almost at the end of the instructions) locate the harddisk and remove it!
As soon as I have the time and guts, I’ll start to replace my standard 60GB HDD for a (faster and) bigger 120 GB 7200 rpm harddisk. I certainly hope the U100 motherbord will support the bigger drive!
Just being lazy, but, any chance of a link to that manual? I’m almost at the point of wanting to upgrade the hard drive in my libretto.
It was good to see the site, I was beginning to think I was the only one still in awe of these little machines!
Dear Rob,
Would you mind email me the manual, I also want to do the same.
Cheers
Sam
Dear Fishd,
You are not alone.
Sam
Dear Bob,
Grateful if you can put a link here or send me a email regarding the manual. I am trying to replace the harddisk with a (8G 300X UDMA CF card).
cheers,
ps. Fishd, you are not alone.
Seems like the manual is hot at the moment!
unfortunately I do not recall where I downloaded it, but because I had to pay for it myself, I’m tryping to find a nice solution for you guys downlaoding it for a small fee. It will be here at the end of this week.
Don’t let any site or person talk you into paying money for a manual. I’ve uploaded the U100 service manual, it’s yours for free:
http://www.mediafire.com/?1kgshjbsczz
If you paid money for a manual you have been conned.
Happy Libretto’ing.
Timmy, very generous of you! Where did you get this manual? I search the whole internet twice and only found a paid option to download the manual.
Tnankx!
I just bought a used U100 Libretto with a defective HDD. Could anyone advise me where to get a resonably priced 60GB HDD and what is the actual specification of this 1.8″ HDD. Your feedbacks is much appreciated.
did you success with 7200RPM harddisk!?
Sorry, did not have time to try. Maybe next week.
well, I used this manual yesterday to disassemble my libretto. it was fine. Dug all the way to the hard drive, but my replacement has not arrived yet, so will post later on whether 120 GB works or not. One thing to comment on disassembly - make sure you understand how every connector works before you try unhooking it - they are all made with very tiny, thin plastic sheet material, and easy to damage. I broke one side on one connector mount, but the thing still holds of course. Also, in manual they tell you to unhook a whole bunch of cables to get access to hard drive. A lot of that is unnecessary. For example, the wireless antenna is crimped on to the card, so I left it on, and removed the whole thing, the card, the antenna and all. Ditto for some other cables - you’ll see. Also, it is uncomfortable that they require you to remove screws that hold motherboard together with the cooling fan. As a result, when you remove the motherboard, the cooling assembly falls off. Now I have to replace the white paste under the cpu. Bother. But, if you are careful, you can avoid that by holding the cooling assembly and the motherboard together. That’s all. Seems pretty straigtforward.
Thanks Luda, very helpfull comment. As soon as I find some time, I’ll try to replace my own HD.
THANK ,LUDA
I hope you will get the success!
hey guys befare! I got my replacement hard drive, disassembled laptop again - but cannot replace, because the old drive has connector micro ATA female IDE, and new drive has connector ZIF. Read this thread: http://www.leog.net/fujp_forum/post.asp?method=ReplyQuote&REPLY_ID=68509&TOPIC_ID=12497&FORUM_ID=23.
This person seems to think you cannot get micro ATA drives anymore. I searched the web - and found none. All either ZIF or LIF, and pictures are all misleading. Anyway, I bought microATA-ZIP connector from ebay. Will try to make it work when arrives. But, I foresee a big problem: the zif toshiba drive is about 5 mm shorter than the old microATA drive. And in the laptop the drive is sitting is a rubber enclosure, that is fitted to the drive. So, the rubber may not fit the new drive with connector converter attached, and things may get loose and insecure. Will post when figure it out. In the mean-time, I made pictures of my ste-by-step disassembly of laptop. Are you interested in seeing? How can I post them?
Luda, thanks for the (terrible) news.
If you can send me the pictures, I’ll past them in my topic.
Better, if you want to, become a member of the team and make a new post yourself!
You’ll add much value to the site.
Luda..thank you for trying
At an way, it is a bad news for me ..
and I am very interested in disassembly U100!
Bob, I wrote the description and prepared pics of disassembly. How can I email you all that? Are you the admin of this site? If so, you probably have my email then. Just mail me your address, and I will send you all that info.
Hi, All!
Just posted pics of libretto u100 disassembly on:
http://www.librettoworld.com/librettoworld/libretto-u100-disassembly-and-hard-drive-extraction/
Thanks