How do you remove the hard drive from a Gateway M305CRV Laptop?

Answer 1

Shut down the laptop. Turn over the laptop and you will find a small panel with a Hard drive sign with 2 screws on the panel cover. Unscrew the cover carefully and pull out the HD very carefully. It's very simple.

Answer 2

Check the bottom of the laptop there should be two panels with screws. One bigger than the other. The smaller one is for ram. The bigger one is the hard drive. Unscrew carefully and take the panel off. The carefully unplug the hard drive. Check support.dell.com for further assitance or check the users manual, the info is there.

Answer 3

The design of almost all Laptops / Notebooks allows for the hard-drive to be removed quite easily (there may be some exceptions, I have owned about ten and repaired several for friends and all have allowed it to be done.) If you have the original documentation which came with the PC these will show where the hard-drive bay is located. Turn the computer off, disconnect ALL cables etc, close the lid. Turn it over. Somewhere on the bottom, possibly on one side, there will be some sort of cover with a small symbol looking something like a traditional dustbin with a lid. In this cover, or next to it, will be either a sliding latch or a small screw (or 2) which hold the cover in place. Operate the latch or remove the screw(s). Slid out / off the cover. On some models the drive comes out with the cover, on others they come out separately. You will probably have to pull the drive out - be VERY gentle with it. There are very many very small pins connecting the drive to the PC - if you bend just one of these pins the drive is dead. If you damage the socket it plugs into (which is mounted on the mother board) the PC itself may never work again. Hold the drive only by the narrow sides - never touch any exposed connections or components. A new drive can then be inserted - again very carefully. The manufacturers do not design the drive bay for regular changes - you should do this only to put in a new drive not as a regular thing. If replacing the drive with a new one ensure you use the correct interface type, there are two on the market and they are not compatible - see which type the old one is - it will say on the label. IDE, ATA and PATA are the older type, SATA and SATA II are the newer. You can also distinguish between the two types of drive by looking at the end where the connections are - the older PATA drives have two rows of very small pins, the newer SATA drives have metal contacts along the sides of a central circuit board.