HP 2133 Mini-Note

Accessing the hard drive in the Mini-Note is pretty easy to do. It’s located in the same compartment as the RAM so if you’re already opened your 2133 for that this will be a cake walk.

Items Required

• Small headed Phillips screw driver (the + one)
• Serial ATA 2.5″ Hard Drive (SSD or Regular)

To start you’ll need to take off the battery, so we can access the screws holding the keyboard in place

Looking at the back of the laptop with the battery off, you’ll see three screws. There are only three of them in the back so you can’t really screw (hehe) this up. You might not see one of them because it’s in the recessed area where the battery plugs in into the laptop. Once you’ve found all three, unscrew them and set them somewhere safe.

Next turn your Mini-Note around and open the screen up. Getting the keyboard off is hardest part of the whole thing. You’ll just need to grab the edge of the keyboard near the screen on the left and gently pull up on it until one of the sides pulls out. Once the left side is out, grab the corner of the keyboard and gently pull it towards the screen and it come loose.

Now with the keyboard off you’ll be able to see the CPU heat sink down in the left corner, the RAM above that, and over to the right of the RAM is the hard drive in a metal enclosure. We’ll need to unplug the SATA connector that goes to the motherboard. Look for the orange/brown ribbon cable coming from the left hand side. It should have a little ribbon “handle” that you can grab to pull it out. Make sure you gently pull straight up.

Next up there are three screws we need to remove in order to the pull the drive out. First get the two silver screws on the left side of hard drive. Then unscrew the big black screw over on the right. Don’t unscrew the black screw all the way. Just unscrew it until it gets wobbly. It’s not meant to come all the way out.

With the screws removed, pull up on the black tab on top of the hard drive enclosure gently to remove the drive from the Mini-Note.

Once the you’ve have the drive out you’ll need to remove the SATA connector from it. Grab a hold of the white piece of plastic and carefully pull it straight out from the hard drive.

Then there are two screws on each side of the drive you’ll need to remove to get the hard drive out of the enclosure.

Get your new drive out of the packaging and put it into the enclosure with the circuit board side facing the the closed metal side of the drive enclosure. Also make sure the SATA connectors face out the open side With the screw holes lined up, put the screws back in. (And make sure not to over tighten them)

Put the SATA connector back on, and then gently slide the hard drive and enclosure back into it’s home in the Mini-Note.

Plug the Serial ATA connector back into the motherboard by lining it up and gently pushing it straight down, and then screw the three screws back in to secure the HD in place.

To put the keyboard back, line the tabs on the bottom of the keyboard with the holes in the case at the bottom edge. Lay the keyboard flat snap the edges back into place.

Now just screw the three keyboard screws on the back side in, and you’re all set!
Video of Upgrading the Hard Drive in the HP 2133 Mini-Note: