Changing hard drive on Dell Vostro 3450

[ziffbam]

Hello,

I just got a new Vostro 3450, and while I'm liking the notebook, I want to replace the hard drive. I cannot seem to find a Dell service manual for the 3450, and the 3400 is not the same construction. When I remove the bottom panel, I can see the drive, but it is covered by the lower part of the chassis. Anyone do this yet?

 

[octeuron]

its protective plastic.
assembly guy should have removed it before puting on hinges.

anyways, i finally removed it by removing the the thin plastic cover by the hinges as well as a lot of time and frustration with pair of twezers

 

[jujul_2010]

Could someone give us fotos step by step of the hard disk replacement ?

Thank you.

(Sorry if my english is not good, I'm French)

 

[nilsb]

Apparently the service manual for the 3550 doesn't exists, no picture of the plastic bottom lid exists, no picture of the internal seen from the bottom side exists and nobody has tried to replace a harddrive on a 3550.

I've searched the net, dell foras, and asked dell support here in denmark. Nobody is capable of explaining how to change a harddrive on a 3550, or provide with manuals or pictures from the open 3550. This is indeed very strange.

 

[Guest]

To remove the keyboard, I used an old credit card to pry around the edges. Make sure you get fully underneath the keyboard. There is a layer of plastic on top that you don't want to pry off.

The silver edges are part of the bottom. They don't separate at all

But how with the keyboard? Pull or press?

 

[jeff_rix]

So, I finally figured it out. I have to warn you that first, I don't have any pics or vids of the process. And second, this has to be the most difficult hard drive swap you will ever perform. Rule of thumb, if you see a screw, you will need to remove it.

1. Take out the battery
2. Remove the bottom panel
3. Remove the screws under the bottom panel
4. Slide out the DVD drive where there are another 2 screws
5. Carefully remove the keyboard
6. Remove the thin ribbon cables for the keyboard, trackpad, etc
7. Remove the screws under the keyboard
8. Gently pry apart the top and bottom
9. Remove the heat sink fan
10. Remove the monitor cable
11. Remove any screws holding the larger motherboard
12. Remove the larger motherboard
13. Replace the hard drive

Now take a breather, and reverse the steps to put it back together.

All in all, it took over an hour to swap the drive. I'm happy with the laptop in general, but this is insane. If this is really supposed to be a business laptop, they should have made it easier to remove the drive.

 

[jeff_rix]

Hello, On Step 5 I did Carefully Remove The Keyboard, but still had problems. I got that far using two plastic credit cards in case seams and verified all screws are out, but there seems to be something hanging onto the middle of the keyboard near the space bar. The keyboard near the center, near the space bar, is too tight, still seems connected somehow - yet there are no screws near there, within an inch or more - nothing. I also pressed down on the License Keys paper tag, etc. for any paper covered hidden hole(s) and found nothing. Any suggestions ?? More force might break the KB

 

[jeff_rix]

So, I finally figured it out. I have to warn you that first, I don't have any pics or vids of the process. And second, this has to be the most difficult hard drive swap you will ever perform. Rule of thumb, if you see a screw, you will need to remove it.

1. Take out the battery
2. Remove the bottom panel
3. Remove the screws under the bottom panel
4. Slide out the DVD drive where there are another 2 screws
5. Carefully remove the keyboard
6. Remove the thin ribbon cables for the keyboard, trackpad, etc
7. Remove the screws under the keyboard
8. Gently pry apart the top and bottom
9. Remove the heat sink fan
10. Remove the monitor cable
11. Remove any screws holding the larger motherboard
12. Remove the larger motherboard
13. Replace the hard drive

Now take a breather, and reverse the steps to put it back together.

All in all, it took over an hour to swap the drive. I'm happy with the laptop in general, but this is insane. If this is really supposed to be a business laptop, they should have made it easier to remove the drive.

I reached a stopping point at Step 5. Can anyone help me ? There is still something just in the middle of the KB holding the keyboard and shell near the space bar, but there are no screws nearby anywhere, nothing even under the MS license key, ertc. I used enough force that it could not just be glued. Does anyone know more detail on Step 5 above, "Carefully remove the keyboard" ?? I tried two credit cards of varying thickness and strength, but it all seems like too much force is involved which could cause a snap or break.

 

[jeff_rix]

I figured out Step 5 eventually. The Keyboard referred to in Step 5 is in the upper half of the laptop, adjacent to the LCD screen and above the touch-pad. The mistake I was making was trying underneath the touch-pad, instead of the upper half where the chrome 1/8 inch plastic trim surrounds the KB. Taking a credit card to that area pops the KB out just as described in Step 5. Step 10 is optional if you do not pull on the monitor cable. Step 10 is required if you are not good at working in tighter spaces.
Step 12 for me was a two step process, where there is a smaller daughter card attached to the larger, main motherboard with CPU etc. After the daughter-card sockets are pulled apart, there are 2 of them about a 1/4 inch apart, the motherboard easily comes out when all screws removed. The daughter-card has about 2 or more hard to get to screws, one behind the LCD hinge, so I found it better to separate the daughter card.

 

[tooptilu]

If you guys are still interested, here's the entire dell tutorials to change any part of your laptop.

http/support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/vos3450/en/SM/index.html (see section "Hard drive")

This is indeed the best design of laptop to prevent the user from changing the HDD.
Good luck with it!

 

[jeff_rix]

Thank you for the updated Dell URL for Vostro 3450 hardware manual. Yes it is time consuming to get at the Vostro 3450 HDD, but well worth it for faster HDD / SDD. I just hope the MTBF is long for whatever I put into my 2 Vostros 3450 since I do not want to go back inside. I chose the best SSD I could find for one and the best HDD 7200 RPM 500 GB spinni ng drive from WD that I could find. So I will have a horse race to see which ones is the most durable / long lasting. I looked at the Dell Vostro maintenance manual and the pictures are nice. The non-Dell steps above do work as I have done this twice. The daughter-card separation from the Motherboard is easy and simple and saves removal of other things, as well as flipping the Mother-board over without removing the display cable ( to get to the bottom disk hold-down screws ) saves any display cable wear & tear.