SSD too physically small for Dell e6410 storage slot.

[Aeternalis]

Hey everyone. I have this old Latitude e6410 that I'm trying to put an ADATA SSD in. The issue is that the original HDD is a few MM thicker than the SSD and as a result, the SSD doesn't truly fit properly and doesn't connect with the internal sata connectors. One of the issues seems to be this plastic ramp or lever that is pushing the SSD up, making it miss the connectors when the plastic bracket you attach to the drive snaps into the laptop itself. The HDD is probably heavy enough to push it out of the way, but the SSD is obviously super light.

 

Short of me just gluing a piece of plastic to the SSD to make it match the thickness of the HDD, I'm out of ideas and am super frustrated with this thing.

 

Anyone have any ideas? Any experience with this laptop? I've seen some youtube comments saying they just did it using gravity, so I'm not the only person that has happened to, but that doesn't work for me.

 

Thanks for any help!

[NumLock21]

Placing a plastic piece to make your ssd the same thickness as your hdd, is probably your go to option to make it work. Back then ssd comes with a plastic piece to match the thickness of hdd, just in case users would run into something like this. 

[Needfuldoer]

Is it any easier to get in there if you flip the laptop the other side up when inserting the drive?

[Aeternalis]

1 minute ago, Needfuldoer said:

Is it any easier to get in there if you flip the laptop the other side up when inserting the drive?

I've tried that and that little plastic lever seems to not let it happen. I'll try it again later.

[Needfuldoer]

Can you get a picture of this "little plastic lever"?

[Aeternalis]

19 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Can you get a picture of this "little plastic lever"?

Lever is probably a bad word for it, it's that small black piece on the right side.

 

I'm not even sure that is the issue, but it may be.

[Needfuldoer]

Yeah, looks like somebody's been in that laptop before. That looks like tape or plastic baffle,definitely not something that's supposed to be there!

[Aeternalis]

The two drives in question (sorry messy room):

 

 

[Aeternalis]

2 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Yeah, looks like somebody's been in that laptop before. That looks like tape or plastic baffle,definitely not something that's supposed to be there!

Yeah I bought it from some shady place, and I'd be happy to remove that piece if there was an obvious way to get into the weeds with it. After taking off the plastic cover of the bottom of the laptop there's no fasteners in that area.

[da na]

If you remove the back cover of the laptop, there's no direct access to the SATA port, is there? Is there a piece of the frame over it, like on my E6400? 

If so, if you're comfortable doing so you might need to take off the entire top assembly. 

[Aeternalis]

15 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

If you remove the back cover of the laptop, there's no direct access to the SATA port, is there? Is there a piece of the frame over it, like on my E6400? 

If so, if you're comfortable doing so you might need to take off the entire top assembly. 

There's no access, no. There's no fasteners. I watched a disassembly and what I get from it is that the enclosure itself can't be opened at all, and getting the whole thing out is an endeavor that isn't worth the effort.

 

 

At this point, I'm probably going to shelve the issue. There seems to be some other issue entirely. Without the piece that you screw into the drives that has the cover for the port, I could freehand the old hard drive into the SATA ports without issue, but I can't even freehand the SSD into it at all. I don't know if it just isn't compatible or what, but at some point I'll try something else.

[Aeternalis]

Ok, I found a solution to make it fit. I just used a butter knife to pry it up and guide it into the position it needed to go into the slots.

 

Sometimes the dumbest solutions are the ones that work. I'll see if I can make the screws fit but other than that It looks like a success enough to work.

 

Thanks for your time guys.