My Phototainer no longer recognized it's HDD, so I opened it up and repaired
it. This is the story of this operation.
If you are merely looking for step-by-step instructions on how to replace
or upgrade the HDD of a Phototainer, follow this link....
The Hardware Assistant
It looks like you want to open
a very expensive and delicate
device.
Do you need some help?
All images are (c) 2003 by Tels. Photos taken with a Nikon Coolpix 5000 and post-proccessed with The Gimp. Full resolution images (2560x1920 pixels) available upon request.
Feedback of any kind is very welcome, although flames will be handled by Mr. Dave Null. Please use GnuPG with my key when emailing me.
If you are not familiar with the Phototainer, you might wish to read the following mini-review.
Warning!
Opening up the Phototainer may result in harm to the device or yourself. Only
attempt this if you are qualified to do this.
While it may sound easy, it is even easier to damage the device permanently.
I was a happy user until on 2003-06-13 the Phototainer stopped recognizing it's internal HDD. It was impossible to connect the PT via USB to any computer (would freeze/hang/crash the computer), nor to use the PT nor to format the HDD via the PT settings menu (sorry for the slightly blurred photos).
The patient may still be alive, but he has apparently lost his long-time memory. So a surgery was planned. After opening up the case, we could take a look at the guts, er the harddisk and see what's wrong.
Mr. Phototainer, would you please roll over?
There is no "warranty-void sticker", only a warning label, which reads (including the spelling errors):
WARNING!
DO NOT OPEN THE COVER OF THIS DEVICE.
NOT USER-SERVICABLE PART INSIDE!
Depending on your local law, you may have two warranty contracts, one with the dealer selling the device to you, and one with the manufacturer, Innoplus.
Innoplus has said that you void your warranty with them if you open the device, and attempt to repair, mod or upgrade it. This means if it is (newly or still) broken afterwards, they will not cover this. Be warned!
In any event, you may also void your warranty with your dealer if you open up the device. While it was ruled long time ago (in Germany at least) that opening up a PC is common and does not void the warranty (based on the idea that it is often and commonly neccessary to upgrade a lowly desktop PC), this is probably not as established for other small, integrated devices. So consider yourself warned.
In any event, it is not neccessary to give the Phototainer alkohol and make it drunk - this simplifies our operation quite a bit.
We use some kick-ass high-quality Übertools from Germany. Well, actually, they were just the ones I grabbed first...
You'll need:
I actually used a small skalpell (please don't ask), but the knive looks more impressiv on a photo.
After carefully not drinking any alkohol, please place the Phototainer on a dry, clean, flat surface. Your average working space will just do. Then remove the battery from the unit by pressing the two silver knobs at each side and pulling at the battery at the same time. The patient is now ready to undergo the operation. Hopefully, you are ready, too.
Use the ultrabright LED flashlight to blind one of your buddies, then startled by his sudden cry, drop it onto his toes. After the upset person is removed from the place of surgery and silencio has once returned, quitly examine the four holes at the back of the unit and check that the heads of the screws are in fact marked with a cross, each. If not, it would be a wise idea to change some of your tools. For instance the screwdriver.
Now start carefully removing the four screws located in the four holes. You may need to apply a firm pressure until the screwdriver locks into their heads. On my unit, one of the screws would turn, but not come out. It turned out (no pun intended) that the plastic gave way and the screw just turned in a round hole. If you can't remove all four screws, just continue with the next step.
ying.jpg)
Now pr(a)y open the case. Insert the sharp instrument -
no, it is not the screwdriver. And not the LED flashlight. Guess again
- into the crack near the CF card slot. Wiggle a bit - until you sit
comfortable. Then work a bit with the sharp device. Then insert the sharp
instruments into on of the cracks at the side. I mean into the crack at the
case of the device, of course. Be very carefully not to drink any alkohol at
this stage of the operation.
The lower part of the device will come slightly apart now. If you left one
of the screws, it might stick it's tiny head out of it's hole, too. Grab it
and quickly pull it out! If not, you might need to use the screwdriver again.
Now use either the screwdriver or the sharp object to press at the inner side of the two buttons holding the battery like shown in the picture above. You need to do this at both sides. After that, you should be able to lift the lid, er bottom of the case off.
Congratulation! The first part was successfully completed. What you see now is the lid, and the harddisk in all it's glory.
The harddisk is connected at one end via a flexible connector (the orange-brownish thingy with the stripe pattern) to the board underneath. Carefully lift the HDD up and remove the connector from the mainboard.
Warning!
Do not try to remove the connector from the HDD at this point, instead open
the small black latch at the board and pull the orange flex cable out. The
black plastic side of the orange connector sticks very tightly to
the HDD and you might damage the board, or the pins on the HDD if you try
to force it off while the HDD is still dangling on the flex connector. Or
you might break the flex cable, which would be equally bad.
After you have removed the connector from the board, you need to remove it from the HDD itself.
Warning!
Be very carefully with that, since the connector
sits so tight that simple pulling it out might end in some bend pins!
To remove the connector you might either gentle pull by gripping the black plastik part (but not on the orange flex cable!) or by inserting a very sharp object carefully between the HDD and the black plastic part.
You will note that the HDD has two small black rubber blocks glued on it at the corners. Carefully remove them. You need to stick them to the HDD that you are inserting later on. If this happens to be the HDD you just removed, you might be able to just leave the rubber blocks in place. I had to remove them for the next step.
If you merely want to replace the HDD, skip to the replace section below.
Since I didn't know whether the HDD was still working or not, I intended to attach the HDD to a computer and check/mount it under Linux to see if it is still ok.
The first picture shows you an HDD connector which can be used to connect
a 2.5" HDD to a "normal" PC. In the end, I didn't use it, since my Dell
Latitude C400 laptop has a cool feature - a removable hard disk tray.
Remove one screw and you can slide out a small drawer with the HDD in it as
seen in the third picture (ignore the evil sticker - it is unfortunately
impossible to buy a Dell laptop without paying the MS tax).
First I removed the laptops 40 Gb IBM HDD and replaced it with the 20 Gb HDD from the Phototainer. Then I booted the laptop via the external CD drive from a Knoppix CD-ROM. I used some old v3.1 because I couldn't find a newer one in 10 seconds, however, even the newest Knoppix should work.
...we could have a look at the mainboard of the Phototainer, right?
The first photo shows the upper side, the second one the under side of the mainboard. Sorry for the quite poor quality, I was so excited that I forgot to check the pictures and/or make more than one of each of the sides.
The underside is only visible if you unscrew the platine and open the device up. If youare merely replacing the HDD, this is not neccessary at all.
It turned out that the HDD was just fine. Linux can mount it, read it, write it, and no errors occur. A quick test with the HDD attached to the Phototainer verifies that now even the Phototainer works fine again with the HDD.
I think the problem was that the connector on the board came loose and the HDD was no longer connected to the board. Because when I lifted the HDD, the connector came apart instantly. But after attaching the HDD to the Phototainer again, the connection is now quite stable. I hope it won't come off anymore, because opening up the PT isn't that easy.
Warning!
When removing the laptop-connector from the HDD to re-attach the orange
flex cable, be as equally carefully as always when removing connectors from
2.5" harddisks. The pins are easy to bend...
Since my HDD still worked okay, I just re-installed it into the Phototainer again.
After putting them two rubber blocks into place again, the HDD looked like shown in the image above.
Warning! Be carefull when putting the flex adaptor back to the HDD and do not bend any of the pins on the HDD nor tear the flex cable!
After succesfully assembly of the HDD, put it at the main board. Lift the black small "lid" of the mainboard HDD connector and put the flex cable under it, then close the "lid" thus pressing the flex cable firmly on the mainboard.
It would be a wise idea now to insert the battery, and turn the unit experimentally on. If everything went well, it should recognize the HDD.
If something went wrong, at least you don't have to open up the device again :)
After putting the bottom case part on again and letting it snap in place, insert the four small screws and tighten them again. Done!
Drink alkohol at will.
The various hardware chips and bits were indentified by Senior Surgery Assistent Dr. Peter D. He also was on stand-by in case any critically conditions with the patient would appear and provided helpfull and witty comments - Thank you!
Rehabilation and after-operational care were carried out by Teddybear. He
already feels better!
Return to my hardware page.
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Tels Created: 2003-06-16 Last modified: 2003-06-17 |
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