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Inspiron 660, HDD removal, inaccessible screw
I am trying to remove and replace the HDD in my wife's Inspiron. I've successfully removed the side and the front bezel and 3 of the 4 screws holding the HDD in the mount. The 4th screw is on the front (bezel) side of the HDD cage. That side is covered with sheet metal with a regular grid of 3/16" holes. These are too small to admit my #2 Philips head screwdriver. The cage appears to be riveted to the bottom and front plates of the case. How do I remove and then reinsert this screw?
I must be missing something obvious.
Thanks
baumgrenze
baumgrenze
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April 6th, 2020 16:00
This whole process started when my wife's Inspiron failed to boot properly. What we saw suggested a total failure of her 1 TB drive.
We managed to get the drive removed. Please consider rewording the "Removing the Hard Drives" section of the pdf manual , Procedure step 3, to read "remove the 2 screws that secure the hard-drive assembly to the now top of the hard-drive bay." Once I removed the third screw securing the rail to the side of the bay it was much harder to lift out the drive. After a sound night's sleep we lifted it out as anticipated.
Once I had it out I placed it in an e-SATA external docking station and the drive spun up fine and the contents could be accessed in ZTreeWin. We reinstalled it and everything worked fine. During the 'repair work' my wife cleaned out some dust-bunnies and I removed the CMOS battery and found it still registered 3 V DC so I reinstalled it.
Thanks for considering our problem. We see it as 'Solved.'
fireberd
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April 6th, 2020 03:00
Please verify which 660 this is, 660 or 660S as it makes a difference.
I was going to link you to the Dell service manual but need to confirm what you have.
You can access the Dell service manual, which details how to remove/install components at link below. The 660/660S is considered a "legacy" model in the listings or use the service tag number (if still valid).
https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/products?l=en
baumgrenze
4 Posts
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April 6th, 2020 07:00
Thanks for the reply.
The machine is a 660 (not 660S.) I managed to download that manual first, then discovered my error.
Service Tag is .
Would a photo on Imgur help?
thanks,
baumgrenze
fireberd
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9 Legend
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33.3K Posts
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April 6th, 2020 11:00
The hard drives are mounted in a carrier. According to the manual you remove the two screws (#4 in the diagram on page 45 of the manual) that hold the carrier to the chassis. You then remove the carrier with the hard drive attached and then remove the screws that hold the hard drive to the carrier.