[SOLVED] Can't open my laptop to install a new drive

[DoYouKubuntu]

Hi guys. I've been MIA lately. My never-ending saga with my laptop is *still* going on, believe it or not. But it's my own fault now. A second trip to the repair center--the same place that did NOT boot it up using its native OS, and therefore did not get accurate results--didn't help, because they AGAIN didn't boot it up using its native OS. So....

Since the problem (locking up randomly and overheating) continued, and we were all sure it's probably a hardware issue, I had System76 send me a new hard drive. I've installed billions of hard drives in my time, so no biggie, right? Wrong. I finally thought I'd do it today--the drive has been sitting here for, oh, two months maybe. Today, I removed every single screw from the bottom of the laptop (14 of them) and got ready to take the bottom off and see where the hard drive goes.

I CAN'T GET THE BOTTOM OFF!!!!

I literally cannot see anywhere/anyway to nudge it open. My eyes are bad, and I'm here alone. When my live-in helper gets home I'll have her use her young, good eyesight to see if she can find anything. I've tried prying it apart with a little flat-head screwdriver, and at one point thought I was making progress, but ended up nowhere. This was at what looked the closest to a slit between the bottom and the laptop.

There are no buttons or latches or things to press, there's no "slide it this way" arrow thing, just nothing. It's a 17.3" Gazelle. Anyone have any ideas on how to open it?!

[claydoh]

https://tech-docs.system76.com/model...e-bottom-cover

Look for the image of the 17" model, if I picked the correct model. I assume it is not one of the older ones.
There are a LOT of screws, it seems, and it looks really easy to miss a few, looking t the layout.

[Snowhog]

Looked at the same link. In order to remove the bottom cover, you also have to remove the keyboard and screen. The link does look to be very clear and concise and the photos are good.

[DoYouKubuntu]

https://tech-docs.system76.com/model...e-bottom-cover

Look for the image of the 17" model, if I picked the correct model. I assume it is not one of the older ones.
There are a LOT of screws, it seems, and it looks really easy to miss a few, looking t the layout.

How did you find that? I went to various places on System76.com looking for...well, THAT, but found nothing.

I had not removed the battery's three screws. I don't remember ever removing a battery before installing a hard drive in a laptop, and didn't think I needed to. I'll try that and see if it works...

Thanks, @claydoh.

[claydoh]

Looked at the same link. In order to remove the bottom cover, you also have to remove the keyboard and screen. The link does look to be very clear and concise and the photos are good.

I didn't read it that way, but on the 15" model some of the screws are also hinge screws, I assume it will be similar on the larger model.
Also, laptop bottom covers often have screws that also hold at least part of the keyboard, or a support for it.
It does not look like the screen or keyboard actually needs to be removed. Just the battery.

Removing the bottom cover:

Removing the cover is required to access the internal components. Prior to removing the cover, ensure the AC power is unplugged and all peripherals (including SD cards and USB drives) are unplugged or removed from the system.

Tools required: Cross-head (Phillips) screwdriver
Time estimate: 5 minutes
Difficulty: Easy ●
Steps to remove the bottom cover:


Follow the steps above to remove the battery.

Remove the bottom panel screws.

On the 15" model:
There are 16 screws total.
The two back corner screws (highlighted red below) are slightly longer than the rest.
The silver hinge screw (highlighted cyan below) is slightly shorter than the rest.

On the 17" model:

There are 17 screws total.
The battery connector screw (highlighted cyan below) is the shortest.
The other two under-battery screws (highlighted green below) may also be shorter than the rest.

1. Pull the bottom panel off of the case, starting behind the battery slot.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Okay, all 17 screws are off, I removed the battery...and I CANNOT get the back off. My fingers hurt from trying, with and without various screwdrivers.

I didn't think it would take brute force! I know I'm not strong right now, but good grief! I'll have my [healthy, young, strong] helper try when she gets home.

BTW, I didn't interpret it either as having to remove the screen and keyboard!

[claydoh]

How did you find that? I went to various places on System76.com looking for...well, THAT, but found nothing..

Web search for 'system76 gazelle remove bottom cover'
I didn't immediately go to the website, did the easy search first.
But I did happen to know that they do keep all documentation on their github so I'd find it quickly enough, or a link to the proper web page.
I just got lucky on the first go.

[jglen490]

17 screws!

[DoYouKubuntu]

No one should be surprised--considering how long this has dragged on--that I JUST NOW got the new drive in!

One thing after another happened so that I never had any help, and last night I went to bed with 100% resolve that TODAY'S THE DAY! (That was one of my mom's little sayings.) Last night I fully backed everything up....again.....local and remote, in anticipation of getting this done first thing in the morning. I used BRUTE FORCE strength that I didn't even know I still had and yanked the damn back off!

From there, it's been almost smooth sailing.

I ran into a stumbling block while doing the install. I had partitioned/formatted it just like I always do, using my long-time standard method of three partitions plus swap. But when I attempted to move on, it warned me that there was no EFI partition defined, and the computer could fail to boot without it. HUH?!

So I re-did it all, adding an EFI partition at the top; I tried various [small] values for its size, until it finally accepted one (I had no idea what to use). After that, it moved on, got all the way through to the end of the installation process...and then popped up an error that the....something had crashed, and instructions that it was now going to boot up so that I could troubleshoot. Great!

It booted up, and since I had no idea what to troubleshoot, I simply clicked the 'install Kubuntu' button instead. Several minutes later I had a successful installation.

Since then I've been working on making it usable, copying in files/directories, tweaking settings, etc.

I have to say that I'm in SHOCK at how tiny this 1TB "hard drive" is! Do keep in mind that my computing days go back to mainframes, with disk drives that were the size of a Volkswagen bug and held a whopping ONE MEGABYTE. So, yeah, this itsy-bitsy drive is really something.

So stay tuned my friends. We'll see if this solves the [seemingly] random lockup problem and/or the overheating problem. Wish me luck! So far, so good. It's fast, smooth, really nice.

[claydoh]

[DoYouKubuntu]

[claydoh]

The EFI partition is required these days, now that the tiny BIOSes have been replaced with EFI firmware. A normal automatic install would create this for you, doing a manual install won't, of course, but the partition can be on any drive, and an existing one would be seen and used if present.

I don't find the size of these NVME drives so astounding as I do the sheer speed they have, even inexpensive ones.
Even compared to the 'normal' 2.5 inch SATA SSDs, they are wicked fast

I want to upgrade a drive, but am torn between going for more SSD space and getting a SATA ssd to replace my spinny secondary drive, or upgrade my smaller 256Gb NVME drive and go for the zoooom zoom, but having less SSD space overall.

[Snowhog]

I want to upgrade a drive, but am torn between going for more SSD space and getting a SATA ssd to replace my spinny secondary drive, or upgrade my smaller 256Gb NVME drive and go for the zoooom zoom, but having less SSD space overall.

As I'm sure you 'personally' are already aware of, just look at your space usage 'history' to determine what suites your needs/wants best.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Thanks for the info @claydoh. Learn something new every day!

I'll be curious to see what (if anything) you end up getting for your new drive.

You know, while I was in there (inside the laptop) and had just gotten the new drive screwed in, I THOUGHT--for one fleeting millisecond--about sticking the old drive in the other slot. Thank goodness my better judgment kicked in. After all this time of not knowing the source of the problem, deducing it could be the hard drive, and getting a new drive in, the dumbest thing would've been to keep using the old one!

[claydoh]

As I'm sure you 'personally' are already aware of, just look at your space usage 'history' to determine what suites your needs/wants best.

They BOTH do, of course
But honestly, I'd druther used graphics cards come down to reasonable prices
My drive space is fine overall.