I have a Toshiba Satellite that doesn't have an exposed or removable tray for the stock HDD. The Stock 5400 HDD is absolutely anemic. Everything other than the RAM seems to be 100% internalized.
Does anyone know how to remove the back fascia or has a similar DIY for getting the back off of one of these notebooks? If I can just get my hands on the drive I can swap it for a SSD!
I just modified the P55t-A5118 (the I7 version) by adding a 256 GB SSD. It was pretty easy.First make a recovery disc so you can re-install your copy of windows, also sign out of other programs you will need to reinstall like Norton 360 or Adobe Creative suite. You can find the recovery disc software by typing recovery disc on the Metro screen. You will need a 16 GB flash drive to do this.
There are 14 rubber covers over screw heads on the back of the unit. Not the actual feet of the unit but covers flush to the housing. Remove these with a tweezers or small flat blade. Make sure you draw a map of where each one was because they are all different sizes. Then using a small phillips head driver remove the 14 screws. Pull out the DVD drive as this is easy to do and will give you a grip to unsnap the back cover. Unsnap the back cover and ground yourself to the chassis. Then unplug the connector that leads from the battery to the motherboard. If you position the unit with the battery on the bottom, the connector is on the right hand side. You can unplug it without unscrewing the battery. Then unscrew the two or three screws holding in the hard drive chassis and push out the hard drive from the motherboard connector. Remove the hard drive from the chassis frame and put the frame around your replacement SSD. Plug the SSD back into the mother board and secure with screws. Plug the battery back into the motherboard and replace the back cover and DVD drive. Tighten down the screws. Insert the Recovery flash drive into the unit. Turn on the unit and follow the recovery instructions.
I had an external drive holder for the hard drive which I plugged into my unit to transfer all my personal files. The switch was well worth the effort and this laptop goes from being merely okay to being great!