Successful Hard Drive Replacement

My Problem

Dead Hard drive- would not boot up.

My Fix

I prepped a large corner desk with a 3 sections of flat shirts and bubble wrap for the glass/bezel/LCD, got a sticky pad and some tape (for homemade blister packs with step # written on them).

My Advice

I did not have a T6 bit, so I was unable to remove the Display connector (I did try with 2 tiny flatheads, but gave up when I mangled them).

Separate the screws by step, I taped the screws from each step onto separate sticky notes, labeled with the step number to keep them organized.

So I did the repair w/o the LCD removed, and had a friend hold it up while I replaced the HDD and reconnected the LCD power.

The magnetizer was a huge help with guiding the screws in.

Make sure to have a can of compressed air- anything trapped between the screen and the glass will be visible. Fortunately, the glass is _really_ easy to remove with the suction cups.