I Swapped My LapTop's Hard Drive All By Myself!

Can you believe it?

So the hard drives arrived, so Frank cloned the contents to my new external drive. We were doing the same with his laptop too. There was a lot that needed doing this weekend, so Frank suggested I try changing my drive myself. He helped me find a video that explained how to do it. I followed along, unscrewing the screws, removing the bits, removing the external shell, then removing the hard drive and the rubber band it's in.

I got stuck at a few places, which is what made it take a whole hour. I think it might have been 30 minutes otherwise.

The old drive had aluminium foil on it and I thought that was a necessary component and I tried removing that from the old drive, until I thought better of it and googled a few things. Also, I forgot to remove two screws. How many screws? TWO! That was a bit a of "duah" moment when the outer shell had trouble being removed.

Needless to say, I did not transfer any aluminium to the new drive and I installed it as per, putting everything back at it should be.

So far so good, everything seems to work well, the drive is functional. Frank installed the clone to the new drive and now he's working on his own laptop.

The only thing I think I messed up is the "n" key. It doesn't go down in the upper right corner of the letter key. I tried loosening one of the screws to see if it would help, to no avail. I have to watch out how I type on the "n", otherwise, it does not type. I am not sure who to fix that. Frank and I might look into that later, but I have a few other things to test first and see if all is well with the new installation. I think the other keys are relatively fine.

Should I try to pop the key out and see if dirt got under it and then put it back? I'm worried I would break it and not sure how it's done. Anyway, some of you tech savvy folks can help me out with advice on that.

I'm kind of proud of myself. I was feeling a bit useless and helpless, all burnt out and unable to help Frank with other things that would have required too much physical energy. I'm glad I was able to do something and that it worked out well, even if there is just that "n" key problem. The "b" and "m" and "j" and space bar seem fine, which are all the keys around it. It's just that one. Numlock keys seem fine too.

Anyway, that's my adventure for the weekend lol Changing a hard drive all by myself. I didn't know it I'd be able to succeed.

By the way, that clown in the background of my image, my paternal grandfather painted him, he was a fan of Sol and the stand-up comedian inspired him to paint that clown :D