For the Vostro 34X0 owners out there sharing my experience with upgrading the hdd

For those of you who want to attempt this, definately follow the Dell guide with a vew minor tweaks. Dell's guide is pretty clear and concise.

Before you start, might want to use the Windows System Image tool to make a image of your nice up to date installation. If not, have fun reinstalling your goodies. It also will do your restore partition if you have one. You will have to resize your primary partition to get the unused space as the image will be the same size as your old hdd. Also, depending upon how windows retores the image you might have to use the start up repair to set the proper partition as active boot.

1. Most of the screws are the same size so that's good. However, you will still want to label where they came from. For example palm rest, mainboard, etc. There are close to 40 screws to keep track of...

a. hinge cover: 2
b. display assembly: 4 for hinges, 1 for LVDS cable.
c. palmrest/bottom case under optical drive: 2.
d. battery compartment: 2 for hinge cover and 2 for palm rest.
e. bottom cover 10 (including one for optical drive retainer).
f. keyboard has 5 under it.
g. vga cable: 1
h. system fan: 1
i. hdd: 4 on cage and 1 for securing drive in place
j. system board: 4

2. Use Scotch tape to hold your screws (I stick them head down on the tape). Nothing says bummer like missing black screws in carpet or dark floor

3. when releasing the tabs on your keyboard, use a plastic tool or tape the end of the scew driver. I prefer plastic tool. Do not follow the guide in this case, using the screw driver or plastic tool, push the tabs back towards the LCD and then the keyboard will pop up. repeat for the other 3 tabs.

4. I did not find it nessescary to remove the ram or the wifi card- all I did was unhook the antennas from the card and left the ram in the slots.

5. Ground strap yourself before you start

6. The machine only accepts standard 9.5mm height drives or smaller. 1TB drives that are 12mm or taller are a no go. They simply will not fit. There are 1 TB Hard drive that are 9.5mm and fit but they are 5400 rpm drives.

It takes about an hour to take the machine apart, replace the drive, and then reassemble machine. You want to go slowly and not force anything. Machine snaps apart easily once all of the screws are out. Use a microfober towell when you place the laptop on the table to prevent scratching it. Also, a plastic scribe tool will help with removing the palm rest.

Cables are easy to unplug and plug with the excepton of the backlighted keyboard's LED power cable. Talk about a giant pain in the rump roast. I found that if you plug that one in first it works better than trying the ribbon cable for the actual keyboard and then that cable. All of the flat cable connectors have flip up locking tabs.

Was the upgrade worth it? Absolutely! that Seagate drive is fairly slow and is worth replacing. I opted for the 750GB WDC Caviar Black 7200 rpm drive... Whatever you chose, make it worth it as you definately do not want to do this more than once.