Pavilion dv9640us Hard Drive

[capo-de-capo]

For anyone unfortunate to have purchased this 3 year old laptop, be aware of problems in case of internal hard drive failure.  This laptop came with a Fujitsu drive installed.  Fujitsu has transferred their hard drive business to Toshiba.  Toshiba does not supply or support this drive.  Photographs of the drive contacts have been sent to Toshiba, Western Digital and others in an attempt to find anyone who has a 2 1/2 inch 120GB or larger capacity drive with the contact configuration that will allow it to be connected to the motherboard socket in the drive bay.

The HP parts department states that this drive is not orderable.  Because of the unique contact configuration on the drive, no sources for either a replacement or capacity upgrade can be found.  Godd luck to anyone needing to replace the drive on this laptop.  I recently had to pay HP more than $400 fo repair this laptop (out of warranty in only 2 years) because of a motherboard failure that I have been told is typical for this series of laptops.  In the event I am lucky enough to find a drive source, I will post it in this forum.  In the meantime, so much for my now ended several decades of loyalty to HP products.

[Huffer]

It is not a problem. It is a standard SATA hard drive. There is a plastic connector piece that slides over the SATA connectors. Remove the plastic piece to expose standard SATA connections. You can use any standard laptop SATA hard drive for a replacement, just reuse the connector bar. If it makes you feel better you are not the first person to assume that the hard drive is proprietary because of the presence of the connector piece.

[Cybercraig]

Hey, there are two hard drives in this machine. Make sure you replace the bad one or just match two larger ones.

[sitruk04]

Which is the primary hard drive on a pavilion dv9640us. There are two 120g HD. One with a vent and one with out, I'm thinking the one wigh the vent but still unsure.