dell 700m hard-drive mount

Hi everyone,

I have a Dell 700m (and have for four years now). I recently decided to upgrade it instead of buying a new tiny laptop. What I would like to do is put two 320gb hard drives in it. Unfortunately, there is, of course, only one hard drive slot. However, there is the DVD/CD-R drive mount. What I'm hoping exists is an "internal hard-drive enclosure"--something into which I can put a 2.5'' hard drive (I don't care whether SATA or IDE) which mounts in the same way as the DVD/CD-R drive. I realize that this is a long shot, but it would be wonderful if it existed. Is there such a thing?

Thanks for your help!
-q(e)d

 

Do they even make 320GB IDE drives? Because that is all the 700m supports.

 

Yes they do. In fact, I already bought two. See http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136345 Though this is somewhat orthogonal to the main point, thanks for your speedy reply!

 

Fair enough.

Could you post a picture of the side of the notebook with the DVD drive removed? We have no idea what kind of connector is in there (other than some kind of IDE interface which might be proprietary to Dell), or where it is physically located.

You might be able to use the Dell Latitude D media bay parts for this (the earliest models still used IDE), but I'm not sure if it would fit.

 

Try these; the Inspiron 700m uses a caddy that has a board screwed on to the optical drive connecting from a standard laptop optical drive PATA port (whatever they're called) to the connector you see at the end of the motherboard. Optical drive height is 12.7mm.

 

I was able to get a better picture of the back of the drive than of the inside of the laptop. Unfortunately I only have my cell phone's camera...



The Latitude D Media Bay looks promising. I looked at Dell's website. It supports drives of this type and also hard drives...

EDIT:

Oh, that looks perfect, Namaiki!! As long as I can find one that fits...

EDIT:

hmm...Trouble in paradise. The adapter is in the wrong place on these optical drive caddies. The Dell drive has the adapater in the middle and these all have the adapter in the far right.

EDIT:

This has the right description. I'm going to cross my fingers and press order.

 

That connector you're looking at is attached to the end of the drive by Dell, it is removable and will connect to this item.

Please look at this image for a better idea of what I am talking about.

 

Let me see if I understand: You're saying that I will detach the "item" you referred to from my optical drive and then attach it to the caddy you linked to originally, right?

I have already ordered the other caddy. Should I cancel that order?

 

Yeah.

Probably, unless you are sure it will work.

 

Okay, I cancelled the order for the alternative caddy and placed an order for the caddy you mentioned to begin with. It should be here Monday or Tuesday. I'll post again after I receive it. Thank you again Namaiki! And thank you Greg!