Adding a second hard drive to Dell Vostro 1700 (Inspiron 1720) ?

I'm still waiting for delivery of my Vostro 1700 but in the meantime I've purchased a 7200rpm hard disk for it, since Dell don't offer it in the configuration.

And since the case has room for two drives I thought I'd be able to use the drive that came with it as well. But it seems that Dell have some proprietary drive cage and I'd like to know what it's called and how can I get one.

The Dell representative I spoke to when I was ordering the laptop was telling me that I can't install my own drive and that I would be voiding the warranty. That's just plain silly but I can't force them to send me one. I can replace the existing drive and sell it off on eBay but I'd prefer to have the use of both!

 

I have an Inspiron 1720 on order and also plan to replace the stock drive with a 7200rpm. What manufacturer and model drive did you get?

Dell gave me the same run around with the voiding warranty speech and the 1720 can run a 7200rpm drive speech. After several calls to customer service and tech support I gave up with them, I'm just wondering if my 1720 will ever ship.

 

I was kinda hoping I could get a caddy on eBay but they seem to have every model except the new ones.

I bought a Seagate Momentus 7200.2.

 

Anyone know?

 

http://www.dellcommunity.com/suppor...arddrive&message.id=61474&c=us&l=en&cs=&s=gen

take a look at this for info for adding a 2nd drive to the laptop, this will void warranty, adding or reaplacing the drives.

 

Anyone interested in adding a second hard drive to their 1720 (or similar model I suppose), check this out:

http://mycatsrule.blogspot.com/2007/10/blog-post_5531.html

 

No disrespect, but the information has been found both on NBR and Dell forums since the original post.

That makes the link (where the guy states he still doesn't know the part numbers) useless.

C7586 HD Carrier No. 2 QTY 1
XK231 HD Interposer QTY 1
2864D Carrier to HD screw QTY 4
63PDH Carrier to bay screw QTY 3

 

So how did you guys go about ordering these parts from Dell.

Today, I called Dell spare parts about 5 times, and most CSR's were clueless as to what was included with each part.

Some said that the parts were not for sale, unless I purchased a HD from Dell.

The last person said OK, but all 7 screws had a tag of $10.99 each (like someone said before) + $10.99 for each of the other 2 parts, which = $99 in all for the parts alone.

Or I could buy a 160GB SATA drive from Dell for $99 or less and it includes everything

 

"I did not bother to order the screws as the Dell (Spares Parts) rep told me it was $10 per screw ..... yes .... $70 for the seven screws. I believe it was a mistake on the reps part ... as it is more reasonable for an entire (laptop ) kit to be $10.

If Dell charges you, send it back for refund:

Four of the screws are the standard screws used to hold a 2.5" drive
to just about any bracket. (ie ..make a visit to local micro computer center store)

The remaining three screws are slightly smaller and can probably be pulled from other computers/laptops - just compare size / thread to the existing screws on the HDD1 carrier.

Note: 2 screws in a diagonal pattern will hold the carrier to the drive bay just fine ... so at
most you really only need to order 1 screw (take 1/3 from the HDD1 bay)"

 

Gentleman, if I am understanding you can call dell parts and order the parts that are mentioned above excluding the screws? I can't wait to get the other hd in my 1720.

 

Yes, but make sure you call Dell _spare_ parts .... or ask for that group when
you call the main number.

 

Great, all I did was get online and order the parts, did not have to speak with anyone and the overnight shipping was free. Everything is working fine!

 

Man, I also bought a spare HDD for my 1720, and now I know where to buy the inter-poser card and the carrier. I'll call them tomorrow. What if they say that they don't sell them as spare parts?