HP hard drive adapter - anyone seen this?

I've gotten myself into quite a conundrum. While replacing the hard drive in my *brand new* HP zv5000z, a little plastic adapter piece was broken, rendering the laptop useless. This piece is an independent part that serves to connect the hard drives's pins to the notebooks 'teeth' like connection.

The problem gets worse. Turns out, having called HP tech support a handful of times, that this little piece cannot be ordered separately. Instead, I must send in my laptop for service...costing $270! Needless to say, this little piece is hardly worth the money, time and effort of sending in. I just need a new one...

So...does anyone happen to know where I can get one of these? I've tried searching eBay...nothing. All parts laptops on there have the hard drive stripped out, doing me no good. I'm not sure what models use this piece, I believe only the newer Z series machines do...

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know! Thank you!

Images (click for larger version):

 

Hi eremitic3,
I'm sorry to here about your notebook. I think the only thing you can do is bite the bullet and send it back to HP for repair, unless you want to just wait for a scrapped notebook to appear on Ebay thta has the part you need.

Can you tell us how it broke? it may help someone else replacing their hard drive avoid this some problem.

Jack

 

Quite embarrassing, really...

In my excited haste to swap in my new bigger, faster hard drive, I mounted it upside down in the drive caddy then put it in, so the teeth weren't aligned. I did press hard on it (stupid, I know) because the drive was somewhat difficult to get out at first, so I thought it was somewhat stiff. Well I soon realized it wasn't just stiff, I screwed up.

And here I am...

 

I think the only way I know how to get this adapter is to get a replacement from HP directly. They should have a Miscellaneous Plastics Kit for this unit which contains the adapter.
I did a search for the parts for a ZV5000 P/N: DU912U (probably not your unit) and this is what I found:

350206-001 $125.00US Hardware plastics and cover kit
350818-001 $85.00US Plastics and cover kit - Contains various replacement components

I don't know which one it is, but I'm guessing it's the 2nd one. I don't know if they will sell this to you directly or if it's only available to service centers.
If you can provide me with your exact model number from your unit, I can do a search and see if I can find the exact p/n's.

-Vb-

 

Thanks for digging deeper, venombite!

The P/N is DP299AV. I have a feeling the piece is used in all of the new Z series HP Pavilion laptops. Of course, it's better to be safe than sorry.

The components kit certainly sounds worth a call to the HP parts support line and finding out exactly what's contained within. Hopefully they'll have an answer...I sometimes find the parts reps to have no more information than what's already available on the web site, which is vague at best sometimes.

I will call today and see what I can dig up.

-e3

 

I did a search for your specific P/N and it only listed the one part number for the plastic kit, but there were no others listed.

350206-001 $125.00US Hardware plastics and cover kit

I hope you can get this from the HP Parts dept. and hope it contains the adapter you need.

Good Luck!

-Vb-

 

I've still been unable to get this part and am raising the stakes. If anyone can find this part and verify that it is, in fact, the exact part I need, I will present them a $50 reward paid through PayPal.

Let the games begin!

 

I actually wound up finding the right part from a user in the HP IT Resource Center: http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=605169

Thank you all for your help (and I apologize for being a bit slow on the responses!).

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by eremitic3

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by eremitic3

 

not sure about the rest, but you shouldn't need a thigh protector from heat. I have used mine sitting on my lap for hours and it never gets hot even while playing games.

zx5000 :: 2.4M :: 512 DDR :: 40gb 4200 RPM HD :: 15.4" :: Radeon 9600 Mobilty M10 :: Aquamark3 22,856

 

I agree, the original drive was very slow. The drive I swapped in was the Toshiba MK4019GAX 40GB 5400RPM drive. Even 5400rpm makes a huge difference.

Any drive mirroring software should work. I used Ghost but I'm sure DriveImage or whatever else will work just as well.

As for included software, there is no "all in one" restore CD. Instead, you get a stand alone Windows XP disc and then an application restore disc and a driver restore disc. Great idea, I think, and I greatly prefer this to the path that other vendors go of having an all or nothing restore option. However, beginners will likely find this frustrating as they'll probably have to professionally restore their system if they don't trust messing with it themselves.

Hope this helps!

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by eremitic3
As for included software, there is no "all in one" restore CD. Instead, you get a stand alone Windows XP disc and then an application restore disc and a driver restore disc. Great idea, I think, and I greatly prefer this to the path that other vendors go of having an all or nothing restore option. However, beginners will likely find this frustrating as they'll probably have to professionally restore their system if they don't trust messing with it themselves.

Hope this helps!

<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

It does indeed - thanks!

Steve

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by eremitic3