Upgrading the drive in the HP2133 mini-note is straight forward, as long as you have a steady hand and the right tools at your disposal. I took some photos of the internals of my mini-note during the upgrade from the 4gig SSD that comes with the base model, to a 120gig Western Digital drive. Here’s a quick breakdown of what you will need and the steps involved.
What you’ll need:
- A very small philips (crosshead) screwdriver
- A small torx head driver (or you can use a very small slotted screw driver)
- A pair of pliers
- A notebook SATA drive (i used a Western Digital Scorpio drive)
All the tools can be obtained from your local hardware store. I bought my hard drive from newegg.
How long will it take:
About 15-30 minutes (it took me about 20 minutes once I located the correct tools for the job).
Step-by-Step:
- Remove the battery
- Remove the three philips screws located behind the battery
- Gently lift up the keyboard to access both the memory slot and the hard drive enclosure
- Position the keyboard where you can easily access the drive enclosure (I placed it at the front of the mini-note - see photos)
- Remove the two philips screws holding the drive enclosure (on the left hand side)
- Remove the torx head screw holding the drive enclosure (on the right hand side)
- Gently lift up the drive enclosure, and disconnect the SATA cable
- Unscrew the factory drive from the enclose and replace it with your new drive
(To complete this step you may need to carefully bend back several tabs on the drive enclosure, the 4 Gig SSD that comes with the base model is smaller than a regular note book SATA drive)
- Re-install the drive in the mini-note (I suggest you insert the torx head screw first, as I dropped it a couple of times in to the machine and had to take out the two philips screws more times than I would like)
- I suggest that you don’t screw the unit back together until your sure that your new drive is functional
When you power the machine back up, you should hit F10 to look at the ROM (BIOS) setup to make sure your drive has been recognized.
After installing the drive, I loaded Windows XP Home on to the mini-note, and I’m so happy I did after my experiencing with SUSE!
Photo’s:
The mini-note after carefully lifting up the keyboard
The drive enclosure inside the mini-note
The mini-note drive bay, with the drive enclosure removed
The original 4gig SSD drive (left) and the Western Digital 120gig SATA drive (right)
Close up of the 4gig SSD that comes with the mini-note
