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How to open the HP Drive enclosure?

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I can not figure out how to open the enclosure of the HP Personal Media Drive hd10000z (the case with the wide black plastic sides). I searched the internet and found Youtube videos but those have been blocked (WTF) Why the secrecy?

Please let me now if you know how.

I added a photo of the drive in the hope that someone may recognize it and know how to open it.

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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I own the same drive....

Use a standard screw driver (medium length, small size).

Insert into the small gap between the black side panels and the front bezel (it is almost impossible to maintain a perfect aesthetic look with this procedure).

Work the screwdriver under the side panel and it will start to pop up and release, expect strong resistance as it was designed to not be serviceable.

Remove all 8 screws, then use the screwdriver blade to wedge open the front & rear covers (carefully).

The aluminum body is a single extruded hollow piece.

The rear cover houses the SATA interface or the drive and is attached by the LED wires to the front cover (be careful).

From there, you can do the rest and change out the drive to any other SATA drive you want.

Use caution on the USB data connection, gently squeeze the metal housings on the end to SLIGHTLY compress the connection. This ensures a stronger connection and helps reduce intermittent connection issues and data drops.....

Good Luck

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This is basically similar to the above comment with the help of vice grips. In my case I wanted to open it to destroy the hard drive so my data couldn't be recovered. But if you're doing it to replace the drive you may be able to preserve the case if you do it carefully. I don't think they designed it to do that. I'd probably take it to a computer repair shop if you're going to replace the drive but you could try. I used a vice grips. Open the vice grip all the way and clamp down on the front plastic end - the side without the plug connections. With the vice grips you can gradually pull the plastic end off. You have to pull really hard moving it back and forth but it will come off. I tried the screw driver method but it wasn't working. Then I think the side plastic pieces can slide off but in my case I just broke them off so you'll have to figure out the best way to do that. You may have to pull the back off first using the vice grips again but you'll have to be real careful. Once the plastic sides are off there's 2 screws on each side holding the drive. Once those are off you can slide the drive out. If you're doing it to destroy the hard drive it's pretty easy. To get to the disk inside the hard drive you need to remove all the screws. There's usually one or more hiding under the label. Then once the cover is off you need a Torx screw driver to undo the screws on the cylinder holding the disk. Take out the disk then sand with sandpaper, bang with hammer, bend with vice grips etc. Google for best ways to destroy hard drive.

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