Hard disks: the important thing to remember is the little Sharps take PATA, not SATA drives. I believe the max size right now is 250GB (Seagate?). A couple of months ago it was 120GB.

Tools: think jewellers or dentists We used a micro phillips head screwdriver as used by opticians, and jeweller’s forceps. You may want 2 of the latter so you can hold down with one hand while moving bits and pieces with the other. The work was done on a towel so things wouldn’t roll away, and every little screw was put in various dishes or saucers so it stayed visible. Also, no such thing as too much light.

The biggest trick is to do with the keyboard. After you’ve removed the various screws on the underside that need removing, there are another two under the keyboard. The keyboard seems stuck. The thing is to take something like those two sharpened bamboo skewers, stick them in between the keyboard and the case near the screen side, and wiggle gently. The keyboard slides back a couple of millimeters and can then be levered up. Remove the two retaining screws underneath it, and you can fold everything out like in the first pic above.

The other important point when you’re taking the interior layers apart to get to the bottom one with the drive, is NOT to remove the screws that hold the heat sink to the CPU. We did by mistake, and wound up with the situation in pic 2. They don’t need to be removed. It only feels like it because by that point you just want the damn thing to come apart!

Getting the ribbon cables reattached (pic 3) is more like neurosurgery than computer tech.

Good luck! Let me know how it goes. I’ll be glad to help long distance if I can. Us Sharpies have to stick together.

Thanks in advance,
Walter