DPfeiffe@massey.ac.nz (D.U. Pfeiffer) (08/02/90)
I would like to replace the 40 MB drive (Conner CP343)
of my ZENITH Supersport 286 with a 100 MB drive. Has
anybody done this before with a ZENITH or other laptop?
Would the Conner CP3104 drive work in my machine? Or
does anybody know which drive is being used in the
Supersport SX with 100MB drive?
Thanks a lot in advance!!
Dirk
--
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* Dirk U. Pfeiffer, *
* Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, *
* Massey University, *
* Palmerston North, *
* *
* AOTEAROA *
* (The land of the long white cloud or New Zealand) *
* *
* DPFEIFFE@MASSEY.AC.NZ on INTERNET *
*****************************************************nfs@cs.Princeton.EDU (Norbert Schlenker) (08/06/90)
In article <887@massey.ac.nz> DPfeiffe@massey.ac.nz (D.U. Pfeiffer) writes: >I would like to replace the 40 MB drive (Conner CP343) >of my ZENITH Supersport 286 with a 100 MB drive. Has >anybody done this before with a ZENITH or other laptop? I've done something similar with a Toshiba 5100 - see below. >Would the Conner CP3104 drive work in my machine? I don't know. Why don't you find out what Zenith puts in the 100Mb model? Now for the grotty details, because others may be interested. I bought a Toshiba 5100 almost three years ago. At the time, it seemed inconceivable to me that I would ever use up 40Mb of hard disk space. I managed to keep up this fiction until a few months ago, when the most recent round of software upgrades convinced me otherwise. What with Windows 3.0 taking almost 10Mb and Turbo C++ taking almost 10Mb and ..., it doesn't take long to fill up a disk. The Toshiba 5100's disk was a Conner CP-342, a 42Mb IDE drive with 27ms average seek times and ~250Kb/sec peak transfer rate. Toshiba now sells the 5100 with a Conner CP-3104, with 24ms average seek and ~650Kb/sec transfer rate. The 42Mb model has been discontinued. Since I was out of space, I wanted an upgrade for my machine. Toshiba does upgrades. Unfortunately, they want $1399 + tax for the job when the CP-3104 costs about $650 retail. Furthermore, they keep the CP-342 removed from the machine. Too much, too much, too much! After considerable investigation, I found the following to be possible problems in a do-it-yourself upgrade. Zenith owners who do the same thing are likely to run into similar problems. 1. The warranty on the machine is voided. This was not a consideration for me, as my warranty is long expired. 2. The machine's BIOS may not support the new drive. Toshiba was nice enough to upgrade my ROMs for me for a nominal sum - Zenith owners should explore this possibility with Zenith. Toshiba 5100 owners should know that Toshiba Tech Support thinks that the V2.20 BIOS ROMs are the most current version, but when pressed will admit to V2.30. This was important for me, as the V2.20 BIOS had timing problems after installation of the CP-3104. (The problem was easily reproducible as a hang requiring power off whenever either Norton's SI or Columbia's DiskTest were run.) 3. Conner made the CP-342 with two different power connectors, one with three pins and one with four. The CP-3104 has a four pin connector. Needless to say, replacing a three pin CP-342 with a CP-3104 wouldn't be for the faint of heart. My Toshiba 5100 had a four pin connector. Others should check FIRST! 4. The space inside a laptop is incredibly cramped. I have had my machine open numerous times, and have always been impressed by how so much fits in such a little space. Working inside a Toshiba 5100 is considerably complicated by the clamshell display and the (very) short cable that runs up from the motherboard to feed it. The short cable length means that the display is never really out of the way when working inside the machine. I assume that there is some trick that authorized repair shops know that allow its removal and later reinstallation. I wish I knew it. For those planning to do this to a T5100, you may find these hints useful when installing a CP-3104: - Part of the display cable is strung under a plastic housing over the disk drive box. If you can get the cable out from under the housing, you'll have an extra inch or so to play. - The power and disk drive LED's are on a little plastic piece mounted on top of the disk drive housing. A small screwdriver (carefully used) will allow you to unmount the piece and get it out of the way, considerably facilitating further work. - The disk drive housing is held to the chassis by four small screws, all of which are easily lost in the bowels of the machine. Have tweezers handy to grab them. - The hard disk is on the left and is attached to the housing by four large Phillips screws, two in front and two in back. The ones in front are trivial to remove; the ones in back require some contortions. A right angled screwdriver is useful there. - With the housing screws out, the drive will fall right out of the housing. Don't drop it on the motherboard. Detach the power connector (pretty easy) and the IDE cable (pretty nasty because the connector has side latches, there are oodles of pins for extra friction, and there's no room to work!). - Put the new drive in. Don't drop it on the motherboard! Reverse all the above steps and you're laughing. At least I was until I discovered that the floppy drive didn't work any more. It seems I pulled one of its cables while replacing the hard drive. I opened it all up again, pushed on all the connectors, and closed it all. Works like a charm. That's all there is to it. I am pleased as punch with the new drive. Oodles of space, noticeably faster. Replacing the drive takes some gumption, but it's worth it. Now that the new drive has been running for three weeks with nary a whimper, it's time to sell the old one. Anyone want a CP-342? They're good drives, very small, very quiet. I will sell my old one, with mounting rails if you want to put it into a regular AT. The new price seems to be in the low $300's - I'll sell mine for $250. I left about 1 Mb of public domain software on it to boot. Norbert