I couldn't find any information about how to replace the hard drive in an old BenQ JoyBook A53/A52 that a friend brought to me the other day to fix I decided to post a few snaps and a short description of the process for anyone that might be searching for a guide on how to do the same thing.

It is relatively easy, but you need to loosen the entire back plate on the laptop to get to the hard drive on this model. It is a bit of a pain but nothing that you can't do at home with a screwdriver and a bit of patience.

I only needed a Nr. 0 cross-slot screwdriver for the all the screws.

Unlock and remove the battery

To be able to unlock and remove the battery you need to first make sure that the lock on the right side is in the "unlocked" position. Then the left slider works as expected and the battery comes loose very easily.

Unfasten all the screws

There are 17 of them on the back and 2 sneaky ones on the back edge of the case (two arrows at top of image either side). Note although the image still shows the battery in place, at this point you should have already removed the battery before unfastening any of these screws.

Remove the two screen hinge clips

These are just simple clip-ons and come of very easily.

Loosening the back panel

Because the back panel is attached to the main motherboard via a small wire you cannot simply remove the back plate. The wire connects the RAM compartment that is attached to the back casing to allow for easy access.

What I found easiest was to simply lift the back plate very slightly just so that it is loose and swivel it counter clockwise. That way you do not have to unplug that rather hard to reach connector and the hard drive (in the lower left corner of the picture) is easily accessible.

Slide the hard drive out of its socket

And that is it, you can now replace the drive with a new one and close the computer case up again.

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