Hard drive mounted, potential problem??

[dae_amp_ika_dtp]

hi. i was just helping my friend out with his PC and we installed a new maxtor 100gb 7200rpm hd. we installed a fresh copy of XP. the thing im concerned about is we mounted the hard drive in a 5.25 bay. im not sure if its 5.25 but its the same size as internal dvd drives. at first we mounted it in a 3.5 and noticed the "play" is the same as in the 5.25 bay. this is because we can only mount one side of screws, cause we cant gain access to the other side of his tower because the other side is riveted in. the 3.5 inch bay has no support for the bottom of the hard drive. it kinda just dangles there on the 2 screws that mount it on one side of the chassis. so we "play" with it to see how steady it is and the steadyness is the same as if it were mounted in the 5.25 inch bay. i persoanally chose to mount it in the 5.25 inch bay because theres much greater air flow. and since it would be the same as mounting it in the 3.5 inch bay. is this a potential problem? mounting the hard drive on only one side with two screws? and theres no support on the bottom, cause the chassis doesnt support that? i know the drive is pretty fast. he just uses the computer for internet browsing, microsoft word, and burning cds. a few dvds every now and then. has anyone else done this? is this bad for the new hard drive? thanks....

 

[SNGX1275]

It should be fine, its not like you are going to be bouncing the computer around while its running.

Are you absolutely sure you can't get the other side off? It almost has to slide off either the front or back or the top, perhaps even taking the top of the case off with it. Check again real close.

Another consideration is to mount it vertically if you have the space. At the bottom of hard drives there are 4 places to screw into (I didn't even notice this until I bought an external hd enclosure). So it might be worth looking to see if you can get any of those 2 to line up with any of the screw holes. It doesn't matter what direction or angle the drive is running in as long as it doesnt' get moved abruptly while doing so (although I prefer to keep it in some form of perpendicular or parallel to the ground). If you could mount it using the bottom of the drive on the side of the 5.25" bay that would be ideal for this situation, and would keep the drive from wanting to torque over.

 

[dae_amp_ika_dtp]

nope, the top and side part of the case are one piece and they are riveted in. i'll try mounting it how you said, im pretty sure that theres space. i have never seen one mounted like that. will it kill the drive faster? is it better than how i have it set up right now? right now if i touch the unmounted side it wont move unless i put a couple pounds of pressure to try and lift it up, putting pressure on it downwards only makes it budge about a couple of millimeters.

anothier thing. how exactly do i mount it? ide and power on top? or horizontal? so that the ide and power cables are accesible like how they normally would be??

 

[dae_amp_ika_dtp]

nevermind... i just bought a 3.5 to 5.25 adapter kit. it seems really stable. thanks anyways.